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Map:
Administrative Divisions of Lebanon

2006 UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Map: Southern Lebanon

-

2007 John Emerson

Map: Northern Lebanon

2007 John Emerson

I.
Executive Summary

In this report, Human Rights Watch examines military
operations by Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon during the armed conflict
that lasted from July 12 until August 14, 2006. Human Rights Watch issued an
earlier report on the conflict, researched and published while the war was
ongoing. Because of our concerns about the conduct of that conflict by both
sides and the difficulty of doing research in the midst of the fighting, Human
Rights Watch conducted substantial additional research in the less difficult
post-war environment.

According to this new research, the conflict resulted in at
least 1,109 Lebanese deaths, the vast majority of whom were civilians, 4,399
injured, and an estimated 1 million displaced. Hezbollah's indiscriminate
rocket attacks on Israel,
the subject of a separate Human Rights Watch report, Civilians under Assault: Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel during
the 2006 War, resulted in the deaths of 43 Israeli civilians and 12 Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, as well as the wounding of hundreds of Israeli
civilians.

Israeli warplanes launched some 7,000 bomb and missile
strikes in Lebanon,
which were supplemented by numerous artillery attacks and naval bombardment.[1] Israeli
airstrikes destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes. In some villages,
homes completely destroyed by Israeli forces numbered in the hundreds: 340
homes completely destroyed in Srifa; 215 homes completely destroyed in
Siddiquine; 180 homes completely destroyed in Yatar; 160 homes completely
destroyed in Zebqine; more than 750 homes completely destroyed in `Aita
al-Sha`ab; more than 800 homes completely destroyed in Bint Jbeil; and 140
homes completely destroyed in Taibe. The list throughout southern Lebanon
is extensive.

This report seeks to answer three central
questions:

Were
the Lebanese who died in Israeli air strikes civilians or combatants?;

Did
Israel abide by
international humanitarian law (the laws of war) in its attacks in Lebanon?;
and,

To
what extent did Hezbollah's actions contribute to the civilian death toll
inside Lebanon?

To answer these three questions, Human Rights Watch investigated
over 94 separate incidents of IDF air, artillery, and ground attacks that
claimed 510 civilian lives and those of 51 Hezbollah combatants, or almost half
of the Lebanese deaths in the conflict.

Our research shows that the primary reason for the high
Lebanese civilian death toll was Israel's frequent failure to abide
by a fundamental obligation of the laws of war: the duty to distinguish between
military targets, which can be legitimately attacked, and civilians, who are
not subject to attack. This was compounded by Israel's failure to take adequate
safeguards to prevent civilian casualties.

The occurrence of civilian casualties does not necessarily
mean that there has been a violation of international humanitarian law, but it
is a starting point for investigations. Human Rights Watch's extensive field
investigations in Lebanon
found that Israel
often attacked targets that, under the laws of war, could not be considered
military objectives subject to attack. In cases where a legitimate military
objective was evident, our investigations frequently found that the civilian
loss incurred may have been excessive compared to the anticipated military gain
from the attack. In critical respects, Israel conducted the war with
reckless indifference to the fate of Lebanese civilians and violated the laws
of war.

Israeli officials contend that the reason for the high
fatality rate was not indiscriminate targeting by Israeli forces, but the
Hezbollah military's allegedly routine practice of hiding among civilians and
using them as "shields" in the fighting. If Israeli attacks on Hezbollah forces
also killed civilians and destroyed civilian homes, Israeli officials have
argued, the blame lies with Hezbollah. The evidence Human Rights Watch
uncovered in its on-the-ground investigations refutes this argument.

Hezbollah at times violated the laws of war in its
deployment of forces in Lebanon.
It also frequently violated the laws of war in its rocket attacks on Israel,
which is the subject of a separate Human Rights Watch report, Civilians under Assault. On some
occasions, our research shows, Hezbollah fired rockets from within populated
areas, allowed its combatants to mix with the Lebanese civilian population, or
stored weapons in populated civilian areas in ways that violated international
humanitarian law. Such violations, however, were not widespread:
we found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers
and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that
in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas
as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of
its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages. On the
question of whether Hezbollah intentionally used civilians as "shields"-that
is, whether Hezbollah forces not only endangered civilians in violation of the
duty to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians the hazards of armed
conflict but also deliberately deployed among civilians with the aim of
protecting themselves from attack-a serious laws of war violation, we found a
handful of instances but nothing to suggest a widespread practice.

For the reasons set forth below, Human Rights Watch's
assessment of Hezbollah's practices does not support the Israeli contention
that Hezbollah violations were the principal cause of Lebanese civilian
casualties. Responsibility for the high civilian death toll of the war in Lebanon
lies squarely with Israeli policies and targeting decisions in the conduct of
its military operations.

Israeli Policies Contributing to the Civilian Death
Toll

In the vast majority of cases documented in this report,
Israeli air strikes hit near or on civilian objects, killing numerous civilians
in their homes or vehicles. While there were instances in which civilian deaths
were "collateral damage" from legitimate attacks on military targets, during
the vast majority of the deadly air strikes we investigated, we found no
evidence of Hezbollah military presence, weaponry or any other military objective
that would have justified the strike. Human Rights Watch visits to the
graveyards in the villages found that the victims of these strikes were buried
as civilians, and not honored as "fighters" or "martyrs" by Hezbollah or other
militant groups, despite the pride that Hezbollah takes in these labels. Women
and children account for a large majority of the victims of Israeli air strikes
that we documented. Out of the 499 Lebanese civilian casualties of whom Human
Rights Watch was able to confirm the age and gender, 302 were women or
children.

This repeated failure to distinguish between civilians and
combatants cannot be explained as mere mismanagement of the war or a collection
of mistakes. Our case studies show that Israeli policy was primarily responsible
for this deadly failure. Israel assumed
that all Lebanese civilians had observed its warnings to evacuate villages
south of the Litani River, and thus that anyone who remained was a combatant.
Reflecting that assumption, it labeled any visible person, or movement of
persons or vehicles south of the LitaniRiver or in the Beka`
Valley as a Hezbollah military operation which could be targeted. Similarly, it
carried out widespread bombardment of southern Lebanon, including the massive use
of cluster munitions prior to the expected ceasefire, in a manner that did not
discriminate between military objectives and civilians.

During the war, Israel
repeatedly sent warnings to the population in southern Lebanon to evacuate the area south of the LitaniRiver.
It issued such warnings by Arabic-language flyers dropped from airplanes,
Arabic radio messages broadcast into southern Lebanon, recorded voice messages
sent to some Lebanese cellphones, and loudspeakers along the Israel-Lebanese
border. Following the release of the messages, many Israeli officials made
statements (see below) suggesting that everyone who remained behind was linked
to Hezbollah, and therefore a legitimate target of attack. In subsequent days
and weeks, Israel
intensified its bombardment of southern Lebanon, hitting thousands of homes
in the south.

It is questionable whether Israeli officials really believed
the assumption that there were no Lebanese civilians left in southern Lebanon,
or simply announced this to defend their actions. Certainly, there is evidence
to suggest that Israeli officials knew that their assumption was erroneous. At
the time of the Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon, stories about Lebanese
civilians dying in Israeli strikes or trapped in southern Lebanon filled the Israeli
and international media. In addition, foreign embassies were in regular contact
with Israeli diplomats to request assistance with the evacuation of their
nationals caught in the fighting in the south. And in some instances, Israel
seemed to know exactly how many people remained in a village. For instance, on
July 24, Dan Halutz, the IDF chief of staff, estimated that 500 residents
remained in Bint Jbeil despite IDF warnings to leave.[2]

In addition, Israel
must have known from its past conflicts in southern Lebanon that a civilian population
is rarely willing or able to leave its homes according to timetables laid down
by a belligerent military force.[3] Reporting
10 years ago on fighting between Hezbollah and Israel during July 1993, Human
Rights Watch found that it was "reasonably foreseeable that a segment of the
population might not flee, and it was entirely foreseeable that in particular
the old and indigent would not be able to evacuate their homes, especially
considering the brevity of time between the first warnings and the beginning of
the shelling."[4] As in
1993, many elderly and indigent people were among the casualties in the 2006
war. Israel
should have known that significant numbers of civilians would remain in their
villages throughout the war. At the very least, Israeli forces had a duty to
check the areas they were targeting, especially after it became clear that
civilians were dying in very high numbers.

Even if those who remained did so out of support for
Hezbollah-a claim that Human Rights Watch's research disproves, as most who
remained behind stayed because they were too old, poor, or sickly to
leave-Israel would not have been justified in attacking them. The political
leanings of the civilian population in a given area or village is irrelevant as
far as their civilian status is concerned. To the extent that civilians do not
directly participate in hostilities, that is, are not committing acts that by
their nature or purpose are likely to contribute to harming the personnel and
equipment of the enemy, they continue to benefit from the protection afforded
by their civilian status under international humanitarian law. Thus attacks
directed against civilians who support Hezbollah only politically are just as
unlawful as other direct attacks against civilians.

Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war
with criminal intent are responsible for war crimes. A criminal investigation
of such attacks would need to determine if those responsible attacked areas
where civilians remained knowingly or recklessly. That is, a commander who knew
that the assumption that all the civilians had left an area was not true but
still targeted that area indiscriminately would be criminally responsible for
ordering an unlawful attack.

Throughout the conflict, Israeli warplanes targeted civilian
vehicles on roads and homes, apparently assuming them to be Hezbollah military
movements. Among the deadly attacks on civilians trying to flee the conflict
are the killing of 23 civilians, including 14 children and seven women, fleeing
from Marwahin on July 15; the killing of six and wounding of eight civilians
fleeing from `Aitaroun on July 19; the killing of three and wounding of 14
civilians fleeing from al-Tiri on July 23; the killing of 2 and wounding of
four civilians fleeing from Mansouri on July 23; the wounding of nine civilians
fleeing from Mansouri on July 23; the wounding of six ambulance drivers and
three passengers in Qana on July 23; the killing of one civilian on a
motorcycle on his way to buy food and medicines on July 24; the killing of
seven civilians fleeing from Marja`youn on August 11; and the killing of seven
and wounding of six civilians in the Beka` Valley on August 14. In all these
cases, there is no evidence of a Hezbollah military presence that would justify
the attacks.

A simple movement of persons or vehicles was often enough to
cause a deadly air strike. On July 19, Israeli air strikes killed four members
of the Darwish family in `Ainata, almost immediately after the civilians
returned in a taxi to their homes after buying and distributing bread in the
village. On August 4, an Israeli strike on a remote fruit farm in al-Qa` in the
northern Beka` Valley resulted in the deaths of 25 Syrian Kurdish farm workers.
Apparently, the IDF spotted a refrigerated truck leaving the farm shortly
before the attack and fired at the farm buildings before confirming whether or
not they were a legitimate military target. On August 7, an Israeli air strike
killed five civilians in Insar, after relatives and neighbors had gathered in
the home to socialize and then left the home at the end of the evening. On July
25, an Israeli drone fired a missile at Sa`da Nur al-Din in al-Ghassaniyeh,
after she had gone to her home to collect food supplies and was driving back to
the village shelter where she had been living with some 40 other civilians. On
August 10, Israeli warplanes struck a home in Rabb al-Talatine, killing four
women, soon after the women had moved a wounded relative (one of the four women
killed in the attack) from one home to another.

The nature of Israel's
bombing campaign in southern Lebanon
belies Israel's
argument that it had direct evidence linking particular targets to Hezbollah
forces before striking them. Human Rights Watch's field investigations found
that in many instances there was no apparent military objective in villages hit
by Israeli attacks. But even where valid military targets existed somewhere in
the vicinity, the humanitarian law prohibition against indiscriminate attacks prohibits
a warring party from treating a town or village as a single military objective
subject to general bombardment. That is, the mere presence of Hezbollah forces
somewhere in a village or town would not justify the wholesale destruction of
villages and towns meted out by the IDF. Nor may attacks be carried out that
would be expected to cause disproportionate harm to the civilian population.

Compounding the problem, Israel targeted people or structures associated in any way with
Hezbollah's military, political, or social structures-regardless of whether
they constituted valid military objectives in accordance with international
humanitarian law-and failed to take all necessary precautions to avoid civilian
casualties when attacking suspected Hezbollah targets.

During the war, Israeli officials repeatedly stated that
they considered all parts of Hezbollah-its military wing as well as its
extensive political, social, and welfare branches-to be part of an integrated
terror organization, and designated any person or office associated with
Hezbollah to be legitimate military targets. Israel's UN ambassador, Dan
Gillerman, told the UN Security Council on July 21 that Hezbollah was a
"cancer" that "must be removed without a trace," and rejected any distinction
between Hezbollah's military and political structures, stating that "[t]he
[Hezbollah] member of parliament and the terrorist in the hills launching
rockets at Israeli civilians both have the same strategy and goal. These labels
cannot be allowed to give legitimacy to a gang of thugs[5]."

The apparent decision to target virtually all aspects of
Hezbollah's membership and infrastructure led to the deaths of some civilians
who were unconnected to Hezbollah, as well as Hezbollah members who were not
engaged in military operations. An attack that knowingly and deliberately
targeted people who were neither combatants nor civilians directly
participating in the hostilities would be a serious violation of the laws of
war. Insofar as the attack is launched knowing that the target should be
treated as a civilian under international humanitarian law, those responsible
would have committed a war crime.

Human Rights Watch research indicates that a large number of
private homes of civilian Hezbollah members were targeted during the war, as
well as a variety of civilian Hezbollah institutions such as schools, welfare
agencies, banks, shops, and political offices, in addition to Hezbollah
military infrastructure and the homes of Hezbollah combatants. The civilian
death toll from such strikes is low, because almost all Hezbollah officials and
members, and often even their neighbors, evacuated their homes in anticipation
of Israeli air strikes. However, Human Rights Watch did document a number of
cases in which civilians were killed during air strikes on civilian
Hezbollah-affiliated targets during the war. For example, on July 13, the first
day of massive air strikes, Israeli warplanes destroyed the home of Shaikh
`Adil Muhammad Akash, an Iranian-educated Shi`a cleric believed to have a
religious affiliation with Hezbollah, killing him, his wife, and his 10
children aged between two months and 18 years, and their Sri Lankan maid. There
is no evidence (and the IDF has not publicly alleged) that Shaikh Akash was
involved in Hezbollah military activities, and according to villagers he was only
a religious leader in Dweir village. On July 23, an Israeli warplane fired at
the Nabi Sheet home of Dr. Fayez Shukr, a leading member of the Lebanese Ba`ath
Party and a political ally of Hezbollah, killing his 71-year-old father.

Israel's
broad definition of legitimate Hezbollah targets is particularly evident in the
pattern of attacks on the densely populated southern suburbs of Beirut, the neighborhood
of Dahieh. In their attacks on this largely Shi`a district of high-rise
apartment buildings, Israeli forces attacked not only Hezbollah military
targets but also the offices of Hezbollah's charitable organizations, the
offices of its parliamentarians, its research center, and multi-story residential
apartment buildings in areas considered supportive of Hezbollah. Statements by
Israeli officials strongly suggest that the massive IDF attacks in southern Beirut were carried out
not against Hezbollah military targets, as required by the laws of war, but
rather against entire neighborhoods because they were seen as pro-Hezbollah.
Some statements by Israeli officials, including Israel's
Defense Minister Amir Peretz and the IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz, suggest
that some of the attacks on southern Beirut may
have been unlawful retaliation for Hezbollah attacks against Israel.

In many cases in which civilian deaths did occur as Israel
attempted to target civilian (or even military) Hezbollah officials, the main
reason for the deaths was Israel's use of unreliable or dated intelligence that
led to the misidentification of a particular building as Hezbollah-related, or
Israel's failure to take adequate precautions to limit civilian casualties
during strikes on presumed Hezbollah targets, particularly the homes of
suspected Hezbollah militants.

On July 13, several Israeli missiles struck the home of
43-year-old Mustafa Khashab, killing him, his wife, his father, his sister, and
two children aged 14 and 16. Mustafa had no links to Hezbollah and had permanently
settled in Germany; it is possible that the strike attempted to target his
brother, Safi Khashab, a high-ranking Hezbollah official, who had left the
village the evening prior to the strike and did not live in the targeted home.
A similar example of failed targeting of Hezbollah's members that led to
civilian deaths is the Israeli attack on the town of al-Ghaziyeh on August 7
and 8, resulting in the deaths of 26 civilians. The apparent target of the
al-Ghaziyeh attacks was a Hezbollah leader from the town, Amin Khalifa, as
Israeli bombs struck his neighbor's home and the shops and homes of his
brothers. By all indications, Amin Khalifa was not in al-Ghaziyeh during the
war, including on the days the attacks took place.

Flawed intelligence and communication breakdowns contributed
to many other cases of mistaken targeting by the IDF that resulted in civilian
casualties. On July 16, an Israeli air strike on a multistory apartment
building in Tyre killed 14 civilians, but the
building was not the "Tyre Hezbollah headquarters" claimed by Israeli
intelligence; it was the headquarters of Lebanon's
Civil Defense offices in Tyre,
an institution protected under humanitarian law. On July 25, an Israeli
precision guided missile demolished an observer post of the UN's Observer Group
Lebanon (OGL) outside Khiam, killing four UN observers, after UN officials had
repeatedly been in contact with the IDF to warn them that they were firing
close to a UN position. Although this report documents many cases in which
Hezbollah fighters wrongfully fired from nearby UN positions, Hezbollah was not
present near the Khiam UN position when an Israeli missile struck it. On the
last day of the war, August 13, Israeli warplanes mounted one of the largest
strikes of the war on the Imam Hassan Building Complex in the Rweiss
neighborhood of southern Beirut, destroying eight ten-story buildings and
killing at least 36 civilians and four low-ranking Hezbollah members,
apparently acting on an inaccurate tip (see below) that a high-ranking Hezbollah
official was staying at the complex.

* * *

Israel
made extensive use of cluster munitions during the armed conflict in Lebanon.[6] As
documented in a forthcoming Human Rights Watch report on Israel's use of cluster munitions in Lebanon, IDF cluster munitions struck wide
swathes of southern Lebanon,
particularly during the last three days of the conflict when both sides knew a
settlement was imminent. The IDF has stated that it mostly fired cluster
munitions at military objectives in open areas, and only fired near built-up
areas "toward particular locations from which [Hezbollah] missiles were being
launched against Israel,
and after significant measures were taken to warn civilians to leave the area."[7] Human
Rights Watch's field research in Lebanon showed that the Israeli
military launched many of its cluster munition attacks at or near towns and
villages, in some cases against Hezbollah forces, but in many other cases with
no evident military objective.

The manner in which the IDF used cluster munitions and its
reliance on antiquated munitions (many from the Vietnam war era) resulted in
estimated failure rates of between 30 and 40 percent for many submunitions.
This left as many as one million hazardous unexploded submunitions that
littered fields and orchards and dozens of towns and villages in south Lebanon,
threatening the returning civilian population.[8]As of June 20, 2007, the explosion of cluster munition duds since the
ceasefire had killed 24 civilians and injured 183.[9]
They have severely damaged the region's economy by turning agricultural land
into minefields and interfering with the harvesting of tobacco, citrus, banana,
and olive crops.

* * *

This report deals mostly with investigations of civilian
deaths caused by aerial bombardment. However, in the course of our
investigations we also documented two troubling cases in which Israeli ground
troops killed unarmed Lebanese civilians who the soldiers should have seen
posed no threat. On August 6, Israeli ground troops shot dead an elderly couple
from the Nasrallah family (unrelated to the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan
Nasrallah), aged 81 and 83, and their son and daughter, aged 54 and 58, as they
came to check on their home in Taibe, which, unbeknownst to them, Israeli
soldiers had occupied. On July 27, Israeli soldiers shot dead 36-year-old
Maryam Khanafer as she was walking away from her home, which Israeli soldiers
had occupied, holding her daughter's portable toilet. While these two cases of
killings do not appear to be the result of any policy decision by Israeli
officials, the circumstances of these killings merit investigation and, if
appropriate, prosecution.

* * *

The Israeli policies summarized above guided IDF military
operations in Lebanon
during the conflict. That they reflect Israeli policy and not just the behavior
of individual IDF members is evident from statements by Israeli government
officials and military leaders that Israeli forces intentionally blurred the
distinction between civilian and combatant. In one such statement issued on
July 27, 2006, Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon said that "all those now in
south Lebanon
are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."[10]
IDF spokesperson Jacob Dallal told the Associated
Press:

[Hezbollah] is a terrorist institution, a terrorist
organization that has to be debilitated and crippled as much as possible and
that means [destroying] its infrastructure, that means its television, its
institutions . In the war on terror in general, it's not just about hitting an
army base, which they don't have, or a bunker. It is also about undermining
their ability to operate . That ranges from incitement on television and
radio, financial institutions and, of course, other grass-roots institutions
that breed more followers, more terrorists, training bases, obviously, schools.[11]

In this context, Israel's claim that it only
attacked military targets rings hollow.

The policies on the conduct of the war had a common element
in that Israel
sought to define a broad swath of civilians and civilian objects as military
objectives. Israeli officials and commanders ostensibly recognized the
humanitarian law requirement that they could target only military objectives
but then unlawfully widened the scope of what they considered a legitimate
military target. In doing so they conducted numerous attacks that were
indiscriminate, disproportionate, and otherwise unjustified. Such attacks are
serious violations of international humanitarian law. To the extent such
attacks were conducted with knowledge or reckless indifference to the civilian
nature of those being attacked, then those who ordered these attacks would have
the criminal intent needed for the commission of war crimes as defined by
international humanitarian law. And to the extent that senior commanders or
officials knew or should have known that war crimes were being committed, and
were in a position of authority to stop the attacks or punish those responsible
and did not do so, they would be responsible for war crimes as a matter of
command responsibility under international humanitarian law.[12]

Hezbollah Conduct During the War

Our research in Lebanon documented a number of
cases in which Hezbollah fighters placed weapons or ammunition inside civilian
homes or villages, as well as some cases in which Hezbollah fighters fired
rockets from densely populated areas.[13]
(Illustrative examples are detailed below.) Such conduct violates at minimum
the legal duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
Where Hezbollah combatants intended to use civilians to shield military assets
from attack, the requisite criminal intent would be present for the war crime
of shielding. However, as already noted, such practices were not nearly as
widespread as official Israeli government accounts and some independent press
accounts have suggested, and our research found that in all but a few of the
cases of civilian deaths we investigated, Hezbollah fighters had not mixed with
the civilian population or taken other actions to contribute to the targeting
of a particular home or vehicle by Israeli forces.

In a few cases, Hezbollah's illegal conduct led to civilian
deaths. For example, on July 13, an Israeli air strike destroyed two homes in
Bar`achit, killing Najib Hussain Farhat, 54, and his 16-year-old daughter Zainab.
Unbeknownst to the family, Hezbollah had built a large weapon storage facility
located in the unoccupied home next door, which was also destroyed in the
strike.

Similarly, on a number of occasions during the war,
Hezbollah forces fired rockets from populated civilian areas, triggering deadly
Israeli counterstrikes. On July 18, an Israeli air strike hit two civilian
homes in `Aitaroun, killing nine members of the `Awada family, approximately
two hours after villagers saw Hezbollah fighters firing rockets some 150 meters
from the home. A local villager in Yaroun, a mixed Christian-Sh`ia border
village, showed Human Rights Watch several places inside the village from where
Hezbollah had fired rockets, leading to massively destructive Israeli
counterstrikes.

In a case of Hezbollah's illegal conduct that led to the
death of only combatants, on July 16, an air strike on a home in Yatar killed
three Hezbollah fighters. The fighters had stored a recently fired rocket
launcher in the home. In like fashion, on July 13 in Marwahin, a mostly Sunni
village on the Lebanese-Israeli border, Hezbollah fighters drove a white van
packed with weapons into the village, parked it next to a mosque, and then
stored weapons and rockets in the home of a local civilian. Two days later,
witnesses spotted Hezbollah fighters in the village moving weapons hidden under
blankets.

Human Rights Watch also obtained credible evidence that
Hezbollah maintained weapons storage facilities in apartment buildings in
southern Beirut
and used civilians to move some of those weapons to different locations,
including at least one civilian shelter in an apartment building.

Hezbollah also fired from the vicinity of United Nations
outposts on an almost daily basis. This often led to Israeli counterstrikes
that resulted in death and injury to UN personnel. For observation purposes,
the UN outposts tended to located on the top of hills, which also happen to be
good positions from Hezbollah's military perspective to fire at Israel.
However, insofar as Hezbollah commanders or fighters chose those locations to
launch attacks because the proximity of UN personnel would make counterattack
difficult, which would constitute the war crime of shielding. That the motives
of Hezbollah combatants may have been mixed does not preclude criminality.
Further investigations are needed, including by the UN, to determine whether
Hezbollah forces acted unlawfully by purposefully using UN personnel as "human
shields" or by placing UN personnel at unnecessary risk by deploying in the
vicinity.

Commentators have cited the firing from near populated areas
to support allegations that Hezbollah routinely used civilians as "human
shields." International humanitarian law does not prohibit fighting in areas
where civilians are present or prohibit the presence of forces in such areas.
Armies have never been obliged to fight exposed out in the open. However,
international humanitarian law does require all parties to a conflict to take
all feasible precautions to protect civilians from the effects of combat.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross' (ICRC) authoritative
Commentary on the Additional Protocols, several
state delegations to the diplomatic conference drafting the 1977 protocols to
the Geneva Conventions sought to define "everything feasible" as including "all
circumstances relevant to the success of military operations." But the ICRC
considered such a criterion to be "too broad":

There might be reason to fear that by invoking the success
of military operations in general, one might end up by neglecting the
humanitarian obligations prescribed here. Once again the interpretation will be
a matter of common sense and good faith.[14]

Parties to a conflict must avoid, to the extent feasible,
placing military objectives-personnel, equipment and weaponry-in densely
populated areas. As the ICRC Commentary notes,
"For example, a barracks or a store of military equipment or ammunition should
not be built in the middle of a town."[15]
Thus while using ammunition in a village during a firefight would be lawful
under humanitarian law (though the presence of ammunition would render a
location a legitimate target), the storage of ammunition inside a village would
not.

Parties must also, to the extent feasible, remove civilians
under their control from the vicinity of military objectives.[16] The ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law states
that this obligation "is particularly relevant where military objectives can
not feasibly be separated from densely populated areas."[17]
Thus parties to a conflict seeking to deploy in populated areas should take
measures to ensure that civilians move to safer areas.

While failing to take precautions to protect civilians
violates humanitarian law, intentionally making use of civilians to render
military forces or a place immune from attack is considered to be the more
serious violation of "shielding." Because the definition of shielding
incorporates the concept of intent, any individual ordering shielding would
almost invariably be committing a war crime.

While we documented cases where Hezbollah stored weapons
inside civilian homes or fired rockets from inside populated areas, our
investigations to date suggest relatively few cases where Hezbollah might have
specifically intended to use the presence of civilians to shield itself from
counterattack-certainly not enough to constitute a widespread or systematic
pattern. One significant exception is Hezbollah's frequent firing of rockets
from the vicinity of UN outposts, where the evidence strongly suggests that one
of the two likely motives for doing so was to use the UN noncombatants to
shield Hezbollah from counterattack.

Even where Hezbollah endangered civilians by unlawfully
carrying out military operations in proximity to densely populated areas, Israel
was not justified under the laws of war in responding with disproportionate
attacks. International humanitarian law prohibits warring parties from
conducting attacks in which the expected civilian loss is disproportionate to the
anticipated military gain, even if the other party is committing violations of
the laws of war.

While the humanitarian law applicable during the Israeli
conflict with Hezbollah placed no obligation on those participating in the
hostilities to wear uniforms,[18] the
routine appearance of Hezbollah fighters in civilian clothes and their failure
to carry their weapons openly put the civilian population of Lebanon at risk.
Since Hezbollah fighters regularly appeared in civilian clothes, Israeli forces
would have had difficulty distinguishing between fighters and other male,
fighting-age civilians, and such difficulty increased the dangers of IDF
operations to the civilian population of Lebanon. However, the failure of
Hezbollah fighters to consistently distinguish themselves as combatants does
not relieve Israeli forces of their obligation to distinguish at all times
between combatants and civilians and to target only combatants.[19] That this
task may have been difficult at times does not negate the obligation. In cases
of doubt, a person must be considered a civilian and not a legitimate military
target.[20]

Summary of Methodology and Errors Corrected

This report builds on Human Rights Watch's August 2006
report, Fatal Strikes: Israel's
Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon. It represents the most
comprehensive study of civilian deaths in Lebanon to date, based on extensive
on-the-ground research. During the course of five months of continuous research
in Lebanon and Israel,
Human Rights Watch investigated the deaths of more than 561 persons during
Israeli air and groundstrikes and collected additional summary information
about an additional 548 deaths, thus accounting for a total number of 1,109
deaths (civilians and combatants) from the 34-day conflict. Human Rights Watch
interviewed more than 355 victims and witnesses of attacks in one-on-one
settings and collected information from hospitals, humanitarian groups,
journalists, military experts, and government agencies. We visited more than
fifty villages and conducted on-site inspections. Human Rights Watch also
conducted research in Israel,
inspecting the IDF's use of weapons and discussing the conduct of forces with
IDF officials.

Human Rights Watch approached Israeli officials for
information on a number of occasions. Our researchers held several meetings
with officials in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the IDF, and the
Ministry of Justice. We also sent a letter on January 8, 2007 to then-Defense
Minister Amir Peretz requesting detailed information about the cases described
in this report, which is attached as an appendix to this report. Human Rights
Watch also talked to Israeli soldiers and officers to learn more about the
instructions the IDF gave to its soldiers and the precautions it took to avoid
civilian casualties.

This report does not address Israeli attacks on Lebanon's infrastructure, which have been
reported on elsewhere,[21] or Israel's
use of cluster munitions, which we will release a separate report on shortly.
It also does not address Hezbollah's rocket attacks on Israel, which we also have reported on
separately, in Civilians under Assault:
Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel
during the 2006 War.

This report corrects two major and several minor
inaccuracies from Human Rights Watch's earlier report issued during the 2006
war (Fatal Strikes):

Further
Human Rights Watch investigations into a deadly strike at Srifa established
that an Israeli attack there killed 17 combatants and five civilians on July
19, not the 26 civilians claimed in Fatal Strikes.

In
a second case, involving an Israeli air strike on the village of `Aitaroun that
killed nine members of the `Awada family, further Human Rights Watch research
established that Hezbollah had fired rockets from near the home a few hours
before the deadly air strike, although there is no doubt that all of those
killed in the air strike were civilians unconnected to Hezbollah.

Human Rights Watch regrets these two major inaccuracies in
its Fatal Strikes report. We have corrected several smaller errors
relating to dates of strikes, ages and names of victims, and the previously
unreported presence of an empty Hezbollah civilian office in a building
targeted by an Israeli air strike in Bint Jbeil that killed two civilians.
Wherever we have corrected errors from previous reports, the text or footnotes
of this report clearly identify the information corrected.

To avoid any such mistakes in this report, we reexamined all
of the cases included in Fatal Strikes and conducted additional interviews,
site inspections, and visits to graveyards to establish whether victims were
civilians or combatants. In addition, we investigated a further 71 cases in
similar detail. Thus, our findings do not rely on any one piece of evidence or
witness testimony, but rather on multiple pieces of evidence that together
provide the information needed to verify the circumstances and victims of each
attack. Our findings in this report reconfirm the central conclusion of Fatal
Strikes: the primary victims of Israel's
bombardment of Lebanon
were Lebanese civilians, and they died primarily because of the indiscriminate
nature of Israeli attacks, not because of Hezbollah's practices.

II.Recommendations

To the Government of Israel

Amend
and revise wartime policies and military strategies that treat all persons
remaining in an area following warnings to evacuate as combatants or
civilians subject to attack, and instead ensure full compliance with
international legal obligations prohibiting indiscriminate and disproportionate
attacks, and that require all feasible precautions be taken to avoid
civilian casualties;

Amend
and revisepolicies and military strategies that authorize the IDF to
target people or structures associated with Hezbollah institutions,
regardless as to whether they constitute valid military objectives under
international humanitarian law, and to ensure that all necessary
precautions are taken to avoid civilian casualties;

Order
the Israeli military to conduct a review of its operational guidelines. This
review should focus in particular on the process of selecting targets and
the types of weapons used. The review should be public and conducted by a
special commission including members of the military, the Knesset, and
independent legal experts.

Institute
procedures within the Israeli military to ensure that it conducts all
military operations in full accordance with international humanitarian law
treaties and customary law.

Special
operational attention should be given in the Israeli military to prohibit
and prevent attacks that do not distinguish between military objectives
and civilians, unlawfully target civilians who are not legitimate military
objectives, or cause harm to civilians that is disproportionate to the
expected military gain.

Ratify
the First and Second Protocols Additional to the Geneva Conventions of
1949, or at least publicly affirm the provisions that bind Israel
as a matter of customary international law.

Investigate
Israeli government officials, IDF officers, and soldiers who ordered or
directly committed serious violations of the laws of war and impose
disciplinary measures or criminally prosecute as appropriate.

Expand
the mandate of the Winograd Commission to investigate laws of war
violations by the IDF during the armed conflict, and the responsibility of
IDF commanders for such violations.

To Hezbollah

Adopt
operational measures to ensure the compliance of Hezbollah forces with the
requirements of international humanitarian law.

Take
all feasible measures to ensure that Hezbollah forces do not place
civilians at unnecessary risk because of their deployments or the
placement of weapons and ammunition in populated areas.

Reaffirm
to all military forces the absolute duty never to use civilians or other
noncombatants to shield military forces and materiel from attack.

Investigate
in particular the incidents of fire from nearby UN positions to determine
whether fighters intentionally used the presence of the UN to shield
themselves from attack.

Adopt
recommendations set out in Civilians under Assault with respect to
rocket attacks on Israel
in violation of the laws of war.

Ensure
that individual members of Hezbollah are trained in the laws of war and
abide by them. Take appropriate disciplinary measures against members who
act in violation of the law.

To the Government of Lebanon

While recognizing the political difficulties presently faced
by the government of Lebanon,
we urge it to take the following measures at the earliest time feasible,
consistent with its state responsibilities and obligations:

Take
appropriate steps to ensure that Hezbollah implements the recommendations
listed above.

Interdict
the delivery of rockets to Hezbollah so long as it continues to use
rockets in violation of international humanitarian law, by firing at
civilians or firing indiscriminately into civilian areas.

Investigate
alleged violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah forces.
We believe the credibility of the investigation would be heightened were
it to be conducted by an independent and credible committee of respected
national experts in international humanitarian law.

Investigate
and prosecute members of Hezbollah who have individual or command
responsibility for the alleged commission of war crimes.

Cooperate
with international investigations into violations of international
humanitarian law.

To the Secretary General of the United Nations

Use
your influence with Israel
and Hezbollah to urge them to adopt measures to better comply with
international humanitarian law.

Establish
an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate reports of
violations of international humanitarian law, including possible war
crimes, in Lebanon and Israel
and to formulate recommendations with a view to holding accountable those
on both sides of the conflict who violated the law.

To the Government of the United States

Conduct
a full investigation into Israel's
use of US-supplied arms, ammunition, and other materiel in violation of
international humanitarian law.

Suspend
transfers to Israel of arms, ammunition, and other materiel that have been
documented or credibly alleged to have been used in violation of
international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or support
for such materiel, pending certification by the US State Department that
Israel has stopped using, and has made clear commitments not to use in the
future, such arms, ammunition, and other material in violation of
international humanitarian law.

To the Governments of Syria
and Iran

Do
not permit transfers to Hezbollah of arms, ammunition, and other materiel
that have been documented or credibly alleged to have been used in
violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, as well as funding or
support for such materiel, pending a commitment by Hezbollah that it will
not use such arms or material in violation of international humanitarian
law.

III.Methodology

This report is based primarily on investigations by Human
Rights Watch researchers who were in Lebanon from the onset of the conflict and
who carried out investigations throughout the conflict (July 12-August 14,
2006) as well as in the months after the conflict (August-December 2006). The
research team included Human Rights Watch's Lebanon researcher, the director of
Human Rights Watch's Emergency Program, Human Rights Watch's Senior Military
Analyst, and consultants hired by Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch has long experience in investigating the
conduct of armed conflict. Human Rights Watch monitors and reports on conflicts
around the world, from the civil war between the Maoist and government forces
in Nepal to the
multi-dimensional conflict in Iraq.
Among our previous reports on air wars are our 1999 Report on the NATO air
campaign in Kosovo, Civilian Deaths in
the Nato Air Campaign, and our 2003 report on the US-led Coalition's air
war in Iraq,
Off Target: The Conduct of the War and
Civilian Casualties in Iraq. Our investigations have contributed to the
prosecution of war criminals and genocide suspects from Rwanda, the Balkans, Sierra
Leone, Liberia,
Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Human Rights Watch has covered previous armed conflicts
between Israel
and Hezbollah. Our 1996 report, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and
the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border, examined the impact on
civilians of military activities from July 1993 until April 1996 between Israel
and Hezbollah; our 1997 report, Operation Grapes of Wrath: the Civilian
Victims, examined the conduct of the IDF and Hezbollah during the
escalation of military activities in April 1996.

Our investigations are guided by international humanitarian
law, also known as the laws of war, which can be found in treaties such as the
Geneva Conventions of 1949, and by customary international law. The aim of our
investigations is to provide an impartial account of the adherence to the law
of all parties to a conflict-including non-state actors such as Hezbollah-and
to document serious violations of that law. Human Rights Watch researchers are
trained in the laws of war and professional investigation techniques, and have
many years of experience working in conflict zones.

During the 2006 conflict, Human Rights Watch issued a
preliminary report of its findings, Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon. The
report was based on Human Rights Watch's extensive on-the-ground investigations
into some two dozen incidents in which IDF bombing and missile attacks killed
civilians. It concluded that the IDF consistently committed indiscriminate
attacks in which it failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians and
that some of those responsible had committed possible war crimes. The report
also concluded that in some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the
absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers suggested
that individual Israeli combatants may have deliberately targeted civilians,
although Human Rights Watch has no evidence that this was done as a matter of
policy. The report explicitly recognized the limitations of its findings
because the ongoing fighting limited the information and investigative
opportunities available to researchers: "Human Rights Watch does not claim that
the findings are comprehensive; further investigation is required to document
the war's complete impact on civilians and to assess the full scope of the
IDF's compliance with and disregard for international humanitarian law."[22]

After the imposition by the United Nations Security Council
of the ceasefire that ended hostilities, Human Rights Watch researchers
immediately embarked on a more extensive investigation of the IDF's and
Hezbollah's conduct during the war, a process of investigation that took five
months to complete. Human Rights Watch researchers visited over 50 villages,
towns, and locations to assess the impact of the war on the civilian population
of Lebanon, and interviewed over 355 persons to get as accurate a picture as
possible about individual incidents. We selected these villages and towns
because civilians had died in them. The end of hostilities dramatically
improved the research climate, as researchers were able to locate and interview
witnesses in the privacy of their own homes and to conduct on-site visits to
attack sites and cemeteries around Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch researchers followed a standard
methodology to investigate the impact of the war on civilians throughout Lebanon. In
each village, town, or location investigated by Human Rights Watch, our
investigators first established the total number of persons reportedly killed,
civilian and combatant. The researchers then interviewed local officials as
well as family members and eyewitnesses to the incidents in which persons were
killed, to establish the exact circumstances of those killings. In the majority
of villages visited, our researchers were able to investigate every death in
the village.

We conducted all interviews separately and independently
from each other, so witnesses were normally unaware of what others had already
told Human Rights Watch. Each interview normally lasted about one hour, and was
designed to gather enough factual detail to assess the consistency of, and
corroborate information given by, different witness accounts. Human Rights
Watch asked interviewees for as much information as they had about attacks. We
attempted to ask each person the same set of questions about an attack, but on
some occasions witnesses could not provide answers to particular questions,
such as the location of Hezbollah fighters or weapons, simply because they did
not have such information available to them. In each instance, Human Rights
Watch researchers endeavored to find multiple witnesses to individual events,
in order to allow for corroboration and the checking for consistency of
accounts.

In some cases in this report, particularly in cases where
Lebanese witnesses discuss Hezbollah abuses, we have withheld the names of the
witness and other identifying information to protect these witnesses from
possible retaliation. To ensure that witnesses would speak candidly about both
Israeli and Hezbollah abuses, Human Rights Watch researchers conducted all
interviews in as private a setting as possible, and explained to witnesses that
they could chose to remain anonymous to prevent relatiation. In all cases, the
identities of the witnesses are on file with Human Rights Watch.

In addition to the detailed interviews, Human Rights Watch
also conducted on-site investigations of attack sites, examining them for signs
of Hezbollah presence or the types of weapons used. For each site visited,
Human Rights Watch researchers photographed the site, documented any forensic
evidence found, and collected the GPS coordinates.

A banner announcing the death of a
Hezbollah combatant in the village
of Yatar.It reads: "We present our condolences to the
owner of era and time [religious reference] for the martyrdom of the mujahid
brother Muhammad Hussain Haydar Ja`far 'Malak'." The use of Hezbollah symbols
and the terms "martyrdom," "mujahid brother," and the giving of the nom de
guerre "Malak" identify this individual as a Hezbollah combatant. 2006 Wissam
Al Salibi for Human Rights Watch

Whenever possible, Human Rights Watch researchers also
visited the cemeteries where those killed in Israeli strikes were buried, to
examine whether their gravestones identified them as civilians or as "martyrs"
or "fighters" for Hezbollah or other armed groups. Our researchers also
examined the many "martyr" posters found throughout Lebanon to establish whether
certain individuals killed were civilians or combatants.

The information collected by Human Rights Watch researchers
from cemeteries and "martyr" posters proved important in corroborating whether
an individual was a civilian, combatant, or Hezbollah official. In southern Lebanon
and elsewhere in the country, many consider it an honor for persons who died in
the conflict to be identified as a "martyr" or "fighter," with little
likelihood that a Hezbollah fighter would be buried as a civilian. Human Rights
Watch did not find any cases in which known combatants or Hezbollah officials
killed in the conflict were buried as civilians, or where the family or Hezbollah
officials denied a person's status as a fighter or Hezbollah official.

Burial practices also distinguish between civilian members
of Hezbollah or other militant organizations, who are buried merely with a
Hezbollah (or other militant organization's) symbol on their grave stone, and
Hezbollah fighters (or fighters from other militant groups), who are buried as
military "martyrs" with distinct markings on their grave stones and Koranic
verses different from those used on the graves of Hezbollah civilian members
(or other civilians). Hezbollah commanders and elite fighters who died in
combat have additional markings on their grave stones, such as an
identification of their leadership position (e.g., "the martyr
leader," al-shahid al-qa'id) or noms
de guerre given to full-time Hezbollah fighters.

-

The tombstone of Hezbollah fighter `Ali
Abdullah Suli in Taibe.The tombstone
is marked as that of a Hezbollah combatant, with the official Hezbollah
symbols and a description of the deceased as a "Martyr Leader." It provides
his nom de guerre "Mr. Safi" and states that he died in the Taibe
fighting.Human Rights Watch
researchers visited graveyards throughout Lebanon to assist them in
distinguishing between civilians and combatants who died in the conflict.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

The tombstone of a civilian, Hussain Ahmad
Nasrallah, who died in Taibe after being shot by Israeli ground troops.The graves of civilians did not bear
Hezbollah symbols, and killed civilian were not claimed as martyrs by
Hezbollah or other armed groups. Human Rights Watch researchers visited
graveyards throughout Lebanon
to assist them in determining the status of individuals who died in the
conflict.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

The same applies for the much smaller number of militants
from the Amal party and the Lebanese Communist Party who died fighting in the
conflict, although it appears that at least in one case, Amal tried to claim
two non-combatant members killed in the war as "martyrs" in order to bolster
its status as a militant organization.

The visits to cemeteries provided an important safeguard
against potential misrepresentations by witnesses. For instance, in our Fatal
Strikes report issued during the war, eyewitnesses were not always
forthcoming about the identity of those that died, and in the case of Srifa,
misled our researchers. After the conflict, a visit to the graveyard made it
possible to establish that most of those killed in Srifa were actually
combatants because they were buried as "martyrs," not civilians.

Human Rights Watch researchers, using corroborative visits
to the cemetaries, did not find any other cases where witnesses deliberately
tried to mislead us on whether casualties were civilian or militants.

In addition to interviewing persons who witnessed attacks,
Human Rights Watch also conducted numerous interviews with various officials,
including Lebanese military and humanitarian officials; Hezbollah members and
officials; UNIFIL and other United Nations officials; members of the Lebanese
Civil Defense and the Lebanese Red Cross who were present at various recovery
efforts, as well as their spokespersons; representatives of international and
local humanitarian organizations; doctors and officials at various hospitals
that received the wounded and the dead; international and local journalists and
photographers; and diplomats, academics, and other policy makers.

To further check the accuracy of our research, Human Rights
Watch reviewed all publicly available information about the incidents it
investigated, including statements of the IDF and the Israeli Ministry of
Foreign Affairs; international, Israeli, and Lebanese newspapers, wire
services, and magazines (in English, Hebrew, and Arabic); statements by local
and international organizations; and reports by local and international human
rights and other investigative agencies (such as the UNHRC's Commission of
Inquiry) to ensure that there were no accounts that contradicted our own
findings. Whenever we found contradictory or additional information, Human
Rights Watch carried out additional investigations and interviews to determine
the accuracy of our information. Where we could not resolve factual
contradictions, this report reflects the competing accounts and makes it clear
that there are contradictory accounts of individual incidents.

Human Rights Watch researchers sought information from
Israeli officials, including the IDF and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, about the various attacks investigated by Human Rights Watch, as well
as any evidence to support claims of Hezbollah shielding practices in these
attacks. Human Rights Watch provided Israeli officials with a complete list of
place names, GPS coordinates, and times of the attacks it was investigating
(Lebanese and Israeli place names do not always correspond, and attacks are
normally logged by GPS location and time of attack, not the name of the
location). Human Rights Watch received only a limited response to its queries
to Israeli officials, but this report reflects those responses where relevant.
In addition, the report reflects any public IDF statements.[23]

Human Rights Watch investigators also investigated the
conduct of Hezbollah inside Lebanon
during the conflict, including allegations of abuses against the Lebanese
population during the war. This report focuses on the behavior of Hezbollah
with respect to its conduct inside Lebanon;
Civilians under Assault: Hezbollah's
Rocket Attacks on Israel during the 2006 War focuses specifically on Hezbollah's
rocket campaign against Israel.

A note on terminology: we use the term "Hezbollah fighter"
or "combatant" to identify Hezbollah military personnel who took an active part
in combat, as opposed to non-military Hezbollah members, who we refer to simply
as "Hezbollah members." Hezbollah is a huge, multi-faceted organization in Lebanon.
It has both a military wing (known as the "Islamic Resistance" or al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) and
non-military organizations, such as its political party, its educational
institutions, and its social welfare organizations, including hospitals.
Because most Lebanese civilians distinguish between the Hezbollah organization
as a whole and its military or "resistance" wing, this report keeps the term
"resistance" when witnesses used it during quoted interviews. The use of the
word "resistance" in this report is not meant to imply a Human Rights Watch
position on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of Hezbollah's military campaign
against Israel.

Like other Lebanese political parties, Hezbollah has
thousands of members who are not actively involved in any aspect of its
military operations. While Hezbollah combatants are legitimate military
targets, ordinary members of Hezbollah, as well as Hezbollah officials not
directing or engaged in military activities, are not legitimate military
targets. The term mukhtar identifies
a local official in Lebanon
who performs various administrative tasks such as birth registrations or
authentication of documents. In Lebanese villages, mukhtars know a lot about the community they serve and represent an
important source of information.

In accordance with its institutional mandate, Human Rights
Watch maintains a position of strict neutrality on matters concerning the
legitimacy of resorting to war because we find it the best way to promote our
primary goal of encouraging all sides in the course of the conflict to respect
international humanitarian law. Accordingly, this report does not address
whether Hezbollah or Israel
was justified or acting legally in their decisions to go to war or to escalate
the war. We look only at how they complied with their legal duties to spare
civilians the hazards of that war.

IV. Legal
Standards Applicable to the Conflict

A. Applicable International Law

The armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in July-August
2006 fell within a body of law called international humanitarian law, also
known as the laws of war. The sources of humanitarian law are treaty law and
customary law, which binds both states and non-state armed groups.

The most relevant treaty law to the 2006 conflict is the
Geneva Conventions of 1949, to which virtually all states are party, including Israel and Lebanon. Article 2 common to the
1949 Geneva Conventions provides for the full applicability of the conventions
when there is an armed conflict between High Contracting Parties (that is,
states), or when there has been a partial or total occupation of a High
Contracting Party (even when that occupation meets with no resistance from the
state).[24] At least
to the extent of armed hostilities between the states of Israel and Lebanon and Israeli control over
Lebanese territory, the 2006 conflict was an international armed conflict. In
general, the 1949 Geneva Conventions provide for the security and well being of
persons no longer taking part in the hostilities, namely captured combatants,
the wounded, and civilians in the control of belligerent forces. They also
provide special protections, for instance, to medical personnel and hospitals.

There has been controversy over the humanitarian law
applicable to Hezbollah. Unless Hezbollah forces are considered to be a part of
the Lebanese armed forces, demonstrated allegiance to such forces, or were
under the direction or effective control of the government of Lebanon,[25] there is
a basis for finding that hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah are covered
by the humanitarian law rules for a non-international (that is,
non-intergovernmental) armed conflict.[26]
Under such a characterization, applicable treaty law would be common article 3
to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (the "treaty within a treaty"), which protects
captured combatants and civilians from murder, cruel and inhuman treatment,
being held as hostages, and unfair trials. Whether captured Hezbollah or Israeli
fighters would be entitled to the protections of the Third Geneva Convention
for prisoners of war, the Fourth Geneva Convention for protected persons, or
only the basic protections of common article 3, would depend on the legal
characterization of the conflict and a factual analysis of Hezbollah and its
relationship to the Lebanese armed forces. Such an analysis is not necessary
for analyzing the conduct of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, the focus of
this report.[27]

International humanitarian law on the conduct of
hostilities, traditionally known as "Hague law" because historically treaties
regulating combat were drafted there, is set out in the Hague Regulations of 1907[28] and the
First Additional Protocol of 1977 to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I).[29] Protocol
I, which provides the most detailed and current codification of the conduct of
hostilities during international armed conflicts, was not directly applicable
to the 2006 conflict because Israel
is not a party to the treaty. Nevertheless, many of the provisions of Protocol
I have been recognized by states, including Israel, to be reflective of
customary international law.[30] Thus the
legal analysis applied in this report frequently references norms enshrined in
Protocol I, but as an important codification of customary law rather than as a
treaty obligation. Customary humanitarian law as it relates to the fundamental
principles concerning conduct of hostilities is now recognized as largely the
same whether it is applied to an international or a non-international armed
conflict.[31]

B. Protections for Civilians and Civilian Objects

International humanitarian law limits permissible means and
methods of warfare by parties to an armed conflict and requires them to respect
and protect civilians and captured combatants. "Means" of combat refers
generally to the weapons used, while "methods" refers to the manner in which
such weapons are used.

The First Additional Protocol of 1977 to the Geneva
Conventions (Protocol I)[32] and the
1907 Hague Regulations lay out the law that protects civilians during armed
conflict.[33] Most of
the relevant provisions of both treaties are considered customary law, rules of
international law that are based on established state practice and are binding
on all parties to an armed conflict, whether they are state actors or non-state
armed groups.[34]

The two fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law
are those of "civilian immunity" and "distinction." [35]
They impose a duty, at all times during the conflict, to distinguish between
combatants and civilians, and to target only the former. Article 48 of Protocol
I states, "the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between
the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and
military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against
military objectives."[36] While
Protocol I recognizes that some civilian casualties are inevitable, parties to
a conflict may not target civilians and civilian objects and may direct their
operations against only military objectives.

Civilian objects are those that are not considered military
objectives.[37] Military
objectives are combatants and those objects that "by their nature, location,
purpose or use, make an effective contribution to military action and whose
total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances
ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage."[38]
In general, the law prohibits direct attacks against what are by their nature
civilian objects, such as homes and apartments, places of worship, hospitals,
schools, or cultural monuments, unless they are being used for military
purposes.[39]

International humanitarian law prohibits indiscriminate
attacks. Examples of indiscriminate attacks are those that "are not directed at
a specific military objective" or that use means that "cannot be directed at a
specific military objective."[40]

One form of prohibited indiscriminate attack is area
bombardment. Any attack, whether by aerial bombardment or other means, that
treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and
distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village, or other area
containing a concentration of civilians and civilian objects, is regarded as an
indiscriminate attack and prohibited. Similarly, if a combatant launches an
attack without attempting to aim properly at a military target, or in such a
way as to hit civilians without regard to the likely extent of death or injury,
it would amount to an indiscriminate attack.[41]
Indiscriminate attacks are "of a nature to strike military objectives and
civilians or civilian objects without distinction." Article 51(4) and Article
51(5) of Protocol I enumerate five kinds of indiscriminate attacks: those that
1) are not directed at a "specific military objective," 2) cannot be directed
at "a specific military objective," 3) have effects that violate the Protocol,
4) treat separate urban military objectives as one (carpet bombing), or 5)
violate the principle of proportionality (described below).

Also prohibited are attacks that violate the principle of
proportionality. Disproportionate attacks are those that are "expected to cause
incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians [or] damage to civilian
objectives ... which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct
military advantage anticipated" from that attack.[42]
The expected danger to the civilian population and civilian objects depends on
various factors, including their location (possibly within or near a military
objective), the accuracy of the weapons used (depending on the trajectory, the
range, environmental factors, the ammunition used, etc.), and the technical
skill of the combatants (which can lead to random launching of weapons when
combatants lack the ability to aim effectively at the intended target).[43]

International humanitarian law requires that the parties to
a conflict take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian
population and to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize the
incidental loss of civilian life as well as injury to civilians and damage to
civilian objects.[44] In its authoritative Commentary
on Protocol I, the International Committee of the Red Cross explains that the
requirement to take all "feasible" precautions means, among other things, that
the person launching an attack is required to take the steps needed to identify
the target as a legitimate military objective "in good time to spare the
population as far as possible."

These precautions include:

Doing
"everything feasible to verify" that the objects to be attacked are
military objectives and not civilians or civilian objects. If there are
doubts about whether a potential target is of a civilian or military
character, it "shall be presumed" to be civilian.[45]
The warring parties must do everything feasible to cancel or suspend an
attack if it becomes apparent that the target is not a military objective.[46]

Taking
"all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods" of warfare
so as to avoid, and in any event minimize, "incidental loss of civilian
life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects."[47]

"When
a choice is possible between several military objectives for obtaining the
same military advantage," carrying out the attack that may be "expected to
cause the least danger to civilian lives and civilian objects."[49]

Avoiding
"locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas."[50]

Endeavoring
"to remove the civilian population ... from the vicinity of military
objectives."[51]

International humanitarian law does not prohibit fighting in
urban areas, although the presence of civilians places greater obligations on
warring parties to take steps to minimize harm to civilians. Humanitarian law
prohibits belligerents from using civilians to shield military objectives or
military operations from attack. "Shielding" refers to intentionally using the
presence of civilians to render certain points, areas, or military forces
immune from military attack.[52] Taking
over a family's house and not permitting the family to leave for safety so as
to deter the enemy from attacking is a simple example of using "human shields."

The prohibition on shielding is distinct from the
requirement that all warring parties take "constant care" to protect civilians
during the conduct of military operations by, among other things, taking all
feasible precautions to avoid locating military objectives within or near
densely populated areas.[53] Such a
determination will depend on the situation. Placing ammunition dumps in the
center of a town during peacetime is a clear violation. Storing ammunition in
civilian areas during fighting will be lawful or unlawful depending on a
various factors, such as whether the warring faction took proactive steps to
remove civilians from the vicinity, and whether other locations that did not
endanger civilians presented themselves. Unlawfully placing forces, weapons,
and ammunition within or near densely populated areas amounts to shielding only
when there is a specific intent to use the civilians to deter an attack.

With respect to individual responsibility, serious
violations of international humanitarian law, including deliberate,
indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks harming civilians, when committed
with criminal intent are grave breaches (see Additional Protocol I) or, in
common parlance, war crimes. Individuals may also be held criminally liable for
attempting to commit a war crime, as well as assisting in, facilitating, aiding
or abetting a war crime. Responsibility may also fall on persons planning or
instigating the commission of a war crime.[54]
Commanders and civilian leaders may be prosecuted for war crimes as a matter of
command responsibility when they knew or should have known about the commission
of war crimes and took insufficient measures to prevent them or punish those
responsible.[55]

V.
Background to the Israel-Hezbollah war

A. Hezbollah's "Operation Truthful Promise"

At about 9 a.m. on July 12, 2006, Hezbollah fighters crossed
into Israeli territory and attacked an IDF convoy patrolling the border,
killing three IDF soldiers and taking two captured IDF soldiers back into Lebanon.
The Hezbollah operation appears to have been well-planned, as it was preceded
by diversionary Hezbollah rocket fire on IDF positions at the coast and near
the Israeli town of Zarit.[56] Almost
immediately after the attack, an IDF Merkava tank sent into Lebanon to seek to
retrieve the captured soldiers ran into a massive anti-tank mine, estimated to
contain as much as 300 kilograms of explosives, killing three IDF soldiers and
wounding a fourth. An eighth IDF soldier was killed in the fighting that
followed to retrieve the bodies and wounded from the tank.[57]

Dubbed "Operation Truthful Promise" by Hezbollah, the raid
fulfilled Hezbollah leader's Hassan Nasrallah's longstanding aim to take IDF
soldiers hostage in order to pressure Israel to release remaining Lebanese
prisoners in Israeli prisons,[58] and to
seek the return of the disputed Israeli-occupied Sheba` Farms area to Lebanese
control.[59]
Immediately following the raid, Hezbollah stated that it would return the
abducted soldiers to Israel
through "indirect negotiations" resulting in a "trade" with Lebanese prisoners
held in Israeli prisons.[60]

Human Rights Watch has criticized Hezbollah for illegally
refusing to confirm the fate of the two abducted soldiers or to permit the
International Committee of the Red Cross access to them. We have also
criticized Hezbollah for holding these detainees as hostages whose release is
conditioned on Israel's
release of a large number of its detainees.[61]

B. Israel's "Operation Change of Direction"

After the abduction of the two soldiers, Hezbollah perhaps
expected a response from Israel limited to several days of air strikes on
Hezbollah targets, followed by a prisoner exchange negotiation, as had happened
during prior hostage-taking incidents.[62]
Instead, Israel
mounted a full-scale military offensive not only to retrieve the captured
soldiers, but also to clear Hezbollah from its northern border.

Prime Minister Olmert declared Hezbollah's raid into Israel and the capture of the two IDF soldiers
an "act of war" by the government of Lebanon,
and stated that "Lebanon is
responsible and Lebanon
will bear the consequences of its actions."[63]
Amir Peretz, Israel's Defense Minister, stated that the IDF would launch a
military offensive that would continue until the Lebanese Army had replaced
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, saying that "if the government of Lebanon fails
to deploy its forces, as is expected from a sovereign government, we shall not
allow any further Hizbollah to remain on the borders of the state of Israel."[64] The IDF's
Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, bluntly stated that the Israeli offensive would
"turn back the clock in Lebanon
by 20 years" if the abducted soldiers were not immediately returned.[65]

According to Halutz, the Israeli offensive in Lebanon had
four major objectives: obtaining the release of the two kidnapped soldiers, "to
remodel the security situation along the [Israeli-Lebanese] border and to
prevent the Hezbollah from reaching Israeli territory," "to weaken the
Hezbollah organization," and to get the "Lebanese government to exercise its
sovereignty over its own [territory] and activities that emanate from its
territory."[66]

Almost immediately after the abductions of the soldiers, IDF
warplanes began bombing bridges, roads, and suspected Hezbollah positions.[67] While the
first bombing raids appear to have focused on preventing Hezbollah from
transferring the captured IDF soldiers away from the south by cutting off roads
and other lines of communication, Israel soon launched a country-wide
offensive against Hezbollah. On July 13, Israel
imposed a total land, sea, and air blockade on Lebanon that would continue until
September, well after the ceasefire began on August 14, 2006. Israeli warplanes
bombed the runways and fuel tanks of Beirut's
international airport on the grounds that the "airport is used as a central hub
for the transfer of weapons and supplies to Hezbollah," and that the IDF wanted
to prevent the transfer of the captured IDF soldiers to Iran or Syria.[68]

During the first stage of the war, from July 12 to July 23,
Israeli forces relied almost exclusively on a massive aerial, naval, and
artillery bombardment campaign, attempting to degrade Hezbollah's military
capacity by targeting its forces, facilities, and rockets, while at the same
time pressuring non-Hezbollah elements of Lebanese society to "turn against"
and neutralize Hezbollah.[69] This was
not the first time that Israel
had attempted to raise the cost to the Lebanese population of permitting
Hezbollah to operate in its midst. In its 1993 "Operation Accountability" and 1996 "Operation Grapes of Wrath" bombing campaigns, Israeli forces had
sought to inflict serious damage on villages in southern Lebanon as a means to pressure the
Lebanese population and government to turn against Hezbollah.[70]

VI.
Hezbollah Conduct during the War

Hezbollah was responsible for numerous serious violations of
the laws of war during its conflict with Israel. Its fighters
indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets into Israel, killing 43 Israeli
civilians (as well as 12 Israeli soldiers), which is documented in a separate
Human Rights Watch report, Civilians
under Assault.[71] Hezbollah
also at times endangered Lebanese civilians by failing to take all feasible
precautions to avoid firing rockets from populated areas, mixing with the
Lebanese civilian population, and storing weapons and ammunition in populated
areas. Hezbollah fighters fired rockets on an almost daily basis from the close
proximity of UN observer posts in southern Lebanon, an act of shielding, at
least in part, that endangered UNIFIL troops by drawing retaliatory Israeli
fire on the nearby UN positions. Each of these violations is detailed below.

Human Rights Watch did not find evidence, however, that the
deployment of Hezbollah forces in Lebanon
routinely or widely violated the laws of war, as repeatedly alleged by Israel.
We did not find, for example, that Hezbollah routinely located its rockets
inside or near civilian homes. Rather, we found strong evidence that Hezbollah
had stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located
in uninhabited fields and valleys. Similarly, while we found that Hezbollah
fighters launched rockets from villages on some occasions, and may have
committed shielding, a war crime, when it purposefully and repeatedly fired
rockets from the vicinity of UN observer posts with the possible intent of
deterring Israeli counterfire, we did not find evidence that Hezbollah
otherwise fired its rockets from populated areas. The available evidence
indicates that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated
civilian areas as soon as the fighting started and fired the majority of their
rockets from pre-prepared positions in largely unpopulated valleys and fields
outside villages.

Israeli officials have made the serious allegation that
Hezbollah routinely used "human shields" to immunize its forces from attack and
thus bears responsibility for the high civilian toll in Lebanon. Apart from its position
near UN personnel, Human Rights Watch found only a handful of instances of
possible shielding behind civilians, but nothing to suggest there was
widespread commission of this humanitarian law violation or any Hezbollah
policy encouraging such practices. These relatively few cases do not begin to
account for the Lebanese civilians who died under Israeli attacks.

When examining the practice of shielding, it is important to
distinguish the serious humanitarian law violation of human shielding-the
intentional use of civilians or other protected individuals to shield a
military objective from attack-from the separate violation of endangering the
civilian population by unnecessarily carrying out military operations in
proximity to populated areas. We documented a number of instances where
Hezbollah's actions endangered the civilian population but we did not find
evidence that such practices were done with the intent of using civilians as
shields.

While not required by the humanitarian law applicable during
the conflict, the failure of Hezbollah fighters to wear uniforms or other insignia
distinguishing them from the civilian population did doubtlessly place
civilians at greater risk. Since Hezbollah fighters regularly appeared in
civilian clothes, Israeli forces would have had difficulty distinguishing
between fighters and other male, fighting-age civilians, and such difficulty
increased the dangers of IDF operations to the civilian population of Lebanon.
However, the failure of Hezbollah fighters to consistently distinguish
themselves as combatants does not relieve Israeli forces of their obligation to
distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians and to target only
combatants.

A. Background: Hezbollah's Structure, Base of Support, and
Military Secrecy

Hezbollah is a multifaceted militant Shi`ite political
organization, whose activities in Lebanon
extend far beyond military confrontation with Israel. Hezbollah is often
described as a "state within a state" in Lebanon. It is represented in the
Lebanese Parliament and in many municipalities throughout Lebanon, and enjoys genuine grassroots support
in most of the Shi`a south, Beirut's Shi`a
dominated southern suburbs, and Shi`a villages in the Beka` Valley adjoining Syria.
Hezbollah is also responsible for extensive social and welfare programs focused
on Shi`a communities in Lebanon
and operates its own businesses; many Shi`a clerics in Lebanon openly support Hezbollah.
Support for Hezbollah in Lebanon
is far from universal even within the Shi`a community. Many Lebanese are
suspicious of Hezbollah's religious roots and its links to Syria and Iran and would prefer if Hezbollah
disarmed or if its military wing was incorporated into the Lebanese army.

Although Hezbollah operates openly as a militant political
organization, the activities of its military wing, the "Islamic Resistance" (al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya), are shrouded
in secrecy.[72] That
secrecy itself serves an important military purpose for Hezbollah, as Hezbollah
knows that Israel
has relied extensively on intelligence and infiltration of militant groups and
targeted strikes against militant leaders. In closely guarding any information
about its military strategy, Hezbollah limits Israel's ability to target its
leaders, members, and military installations. This strategy of secrecy
significantly affected Israel's
ability to target Hezbollah from the air, as Israel often lacked the
intelligence information to target Hezbollah personnel and installations.

Hezbollah's fighters adhere to a strict code of silence and
carefully guard their military information. During the 2006 war, Hezbollah's
fighters gave almost no interviews to foreign or local reporters, often simply
walking away without comment when approached by journalists. No local or
foreign correspondents-not even those seen as sympathetic to
Hezbollah-accompanied Hezbollah fighters during military operations.

Hezbollah enjoys considerable popular support from the Shi`a
rural population of southern Lebanon
in particular, but also in other Shi`a parts of Lebanon,
including the Beka` Valley and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Although many Shi`as in Lebanon
support political organizations other than Hezbollah, including Amal and the
Lebanese Communist Party, many Shi`as in Lebanon as well as many Lebanese from
other confessional groups support Hezbollah as a "resistance" organization to
Israel and credit its armed activities with ending Israel's long occupation of
southern Lebanon (1978-2000).[73] The
extent of both Hezbollah's support and its control is evident in the prominent
displays of Hezbollah flags in almost every Shi`a village in southern Lebanon,
and the "martyr" posters depicting Hezbollah and Amal fighters who have died in
battles with Israel lining main streets. At the same time, many Lebanese-Shi`a,
Sunni, Christian, Druze, and nonsectarian-are deeply opposed to Hezbollah,
considering Hezbollah a tool of Syrian and Iranian influence, and accusing
Hezbollah of drawing all of Lebanon into regular and unnecessary conflict with
Israel.

B. Hezbollah's Weapons Storage

Human Rights Watch documented a number of cases where Hezbollah
violated the laws of war by storing weapons and ammunition in populated areas
and making no effort to remove the civilians under their control from the area.
Humantarian law requires warring parties to take all feasible precautions to
protect civilian populations in areas under their control from the affects of
attacks.[74] This
includes avoiding deploying military targets such as weapons and ammunition in
densely populated areas,[75] and when
this is not possible, removing civilians from the vicinity of military
objectives.[76] As one
commentator writes:

Commanders will ... have to ask themselves before locating
troops in a populated area whether it would not be feasible to do otherwise. So
much depends on the circumstances at the time: the urgency or otherwise of the
moment, the tactical situation, the level and density of the civilian
population, the overall deployment or battle plans and many other factors.[77]

Intentionally using civilians to protect a military
objective from attack would be shielding.

On July 13, at around 4:05 a.m., an Israeli air strike on
the village of Bar`ashit
demolished the home of Najib Hussain Farhat, a lottery card seller, and the
unoccupied neighboring home of his brother, who had moved to Beirut in 1996. The air strike killed Najib,
54, and his 16-year-old daughter, Zainab, and severely injured his wife, son,
and daughter. According to a well-informed source in the village, Hezbollah had
rented the basement of the unoccupied home and had enlarged it into a
"warehouse" to store large numbers of weapons. Neither Hezbollah nor Najib's
relatives had informed Najib about the Hezbollah weapons cache next door, so he
had not felt the need to evacuate his home when war broke out. The surviving
relatives complained to Hezbollah officials about this incident, and they were
met first with denials and then with threats from Hezbollah that it would
withhold compensation to the family if they spoke out publicly:

After the incident, the family had a fight with Hezbollah.
At first, Hezbollah denied the allegations, but when the whole town learned of
the incident, they finally admitted it. The person they complained to is also
in charge of compensation, and he delayed the payment to the family. The family
has stopped speaking out because they are afraid they will lose the
compensation.[78]

Some of the most serious allegations of Hezbollah placing
weapons inside populated civilian areas emerged from the Sunni border village of Marwahin. According to the villagers of
Marwahin, they began having problems with Hezbollah fighters and weapons
infiltrating their village almost as soon as the war started. One witness
described how two Hezbollah fighters, one dressed in military camouflage and a
second in civilian clothes, came to Marwahin on July 12, the day of the
abduction of the two IDF soldiers, and began scouting the village. An Israeli
helicopter was overhead, looking for Hezbollah targets. One witness told Human
Rights Watch that Zahra Abdullah, 52, one of the women who later died in a July
15 Israeli strike, shouted at the fighters to leave, saying that if they were
spotted, the helicopter would attack the village.[79]

The Hezbollah fighters ignored her, the witness said, and
returned later that day with a white van packed with weapons. They parked it
next to the village mosque, where it remained until it was destroyed by an
Israeli strike.[80] Unknown
to the villagers, Hezbollah had also placed a large cache of rockets and other
weapons in the home of a villager who was sympathetic to Hezbollah (the weapons
cache was destroyed in an Israeli air strike).[81]
Following the war, Human Rights Watch researchers found both the destroyed van
and the destroyed weapons cache in the home, both still carrying the remains of
rockets, rocket propelled grenades, and other weaponry. The storage of arms in
a populated area endangered civilians in violation of the international
humanitarian law requirement that Hezbollah take all feasible precautions to
spare civilians during the armed conflict. However, Human Rights Watch was
unable to discover evidence shedding light on whether that was done with the
intent to use civilians to render the weapons immune from attack as would be
required to make a legal case of shielding.

Similarly, Hezbollah's actions in the village again endangered
civilians three days following the initial incident on July 12. On July 15,
around 7 or 8 a.m., according to her surviving relatives, Zahra Abdullah told
them that she spotted three Hezbollah fighters carrying weapons and rockets
behind her home, hiding the weapons in blue blankets. She again confronted the
fighters, telling them, "Please, there are kids inside this home." One of the
Hezbollah fighters turned his automatic weapon on Zahra, and told her to "shut
up and go inside." Zahra returned to her home, crying.[82]
That day, many villagers fled from Marwahin following Israeli orders to
evacuate the village. Twenty-three fleeing civilians from Marwahin, including
Zahra Abdullah, were killed in an Israeli air strike on their convoy (see
below).

Human Rights Watch has also received credible information
that Hezbollah stored weapons in civilian areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut. One southern
suburb resident told Human Rights Watch she visited a weapons storage facility
on the second floor of an apartment building in the southern suburb of the
Dahieh.[83] The same
resident said that she witnessed Hezbollah transfering some of the weapons to a
bomb shelter beneath a building where civilians had sought refuge. The
Hezbollah militants covered the weapons with sheets, with the help of some of
the civilians sheltering in the basement. According to the same witness,
Hezbollah fighters also took shelter with the civilians in the basement.[84] The use
of a civilian shelter in this manner at least endangers civilians in violation
of the requirements of international humanitarian law and suggests an intent to
use civilians as a shield against attack.

Human Rights Watch has no evidence to suggest that the
placement of such weapons caches and Hezbollah fighters in Dahieh was
systematic or widespread. In those instances Hezbollah stored weapons and
deployed fighters in such a densely populated neighborhood, it was committing a
serious violation of the laws of war, and if it purposefully used civilians to
forestall Israeli attacks, was committing shielding. While Israel would have been justified in
attacking the Hezbollah weapons caches and sheltering Hezbollah fighters, it
remained under an obligation to ensure that its attacks were not indiscriminate
or disproportionate-or to cancel the attack. Even in light of the evidence of a
Hezbollah military presence in the Dahieh, Israel's massive destruction of the
area was certainly both indiscriminate and disproportionate.

In the 94 incidents involving civilian deaths that Human
Rights Watch investigated, we found evidence in only one case involving
civilian deaths that Hezbollah weapons were stored in the building. Rather, it
appears from our interviews and a review of publicly available reports on
Hezbollah's military strategy that Hezbollah had stored most of its weapons and
ammunition, notably rockets, in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located
in the fields and the valleys surrounding villages.

Nicholas Blanford, the Beirut-based correspondent for The Times of London,
The Christian Science Monitor, and Time magazine, described how Hezbollah
prepared extensive fighting positions in rural, largely unpopulated areas of
southern Lebanon:

Other than the permanent observation posts along the Blue
Line, such as the fortified position on Shaikh Abbad hill near the village of Houla, most of Hizbollah's construction
activities were shrouded in secrecy and kept to remoter tracts of the border
[where] the group established mini security zones, off-limits to the general
public. There were persistent reports over those six years of residents of
villages in remote parts of the border being kept awake at night by distant
explosions as Hizbullah dynamited new bunkers and positions. The extent and
thoroughness of this military infrastructure was underestimated by observers
and by the IDF, despite the latter enjoying extensive reconnaissance
capabilities through overflight by jets and drones as well as possible assets
on the ground in south Lebanon.
Israeli troops came across some of these bunkers during the war, finding
spacious well-equipped rooms 25 feet underground with side tunnels, storage
chambers and TV cameras mounted at the entrance for security.[85]

A few months after the war, Blanford and a team of BBC
journalists separately located and entered some of the Hezbollah bunkers in
southern Lebanon,
finding them undamaged from the war.[86]
A number of villagers confirmed to Human Rights Watch the establishment of
bunkers in areas off-limits to them. In the village of `Ain Ebel, villagers
told Human Rights Watch that Hezbollah started digging in 2000 in the fields
behind the village and had placed a number of fields adjacent to the village
"off limits" to the local villagers.[87]

Hezbollah never denied its extensive preparations for war.
In August 2006, at the end of the conflict, Shaikh Na`im Qassem, the deputy
secretary-general of Hezbollah, told al-Manar television that "over the past
six years, we have been working day and night to prepare, equip, and train
because we never trusted this enemy [Israel]."[88]

C. Hezbollah's Rocket Firing Positions

In most southern Lebanese villages visited by Human Rights
Watch, local villagers consistently stated that Hezbollah fighters had not
fired rockets from within the village, but from nearby fields and orchards, or
from more remote uninhabited valleys. On a few occasions, Human Rights Watch
was able to establish through eyewitness interviews that Hezbollah fighters did
fire directly from inhabited villages, a practice that would have put the civilian
population of those villages at great risk of Israeli counterfire. While
international humanitarian law recognizes that fighting from or near populated
areas is permissible if there are no feasible alternatives, Hezbollah did have
alternatives when it fired from inside villages in the [majority] of cases
examined by Human Rights Watch. This is evidenced by the fact that Hezbollah
had bunkers and positions outside villages and was able to actually use them a
great deal of the time.

Human Rights Watch was able to confirm a number of cases
where Hezbollah fighters fired from inside populated areas of villages,
possibly drawing deadly retaliatory Israeli strikes that caused civilian
casualties. On July 18, at 12:45 at night, an Israeli air strike hit two civilian
homes in the center of `Aitaroun, killing nine members of the `Awada family.[89] According
to surviving members of the family,[90]
Hezbollah fighters had been firing rockets at Israel from approximately 100 to
150 meters away from their home around 10:15 p.m. that night (2 hours prior to
the Israeli strike). Some of the members of the `Awada family had already
abandoned another home on the outskirts of `Aitaroun because Hezbollah had been
firing rockets from nearby that home:

Two days before the attack, [an `Awada family member] saw
Hezbollah firing rockets from 50 meters away from her house, which is on the
outskirts of the village. She saw them setting up the rockets and launching
them from 50 meters away. She then fled her house and came to the house in the
center of the village because she thought it would be safer there...

The night of the attack, Hezbollah was firing from inside
the village. They should have stayed out of the village, not fired from inside.
The men of the town should have talked to the fighters . From 100 or 150
meters away from our house, from inside the village, they were firing rockets.
At 10:15 p.m., they were firing rockets from near our house. We heard the
missiles going out.[91]

"We were sleeping; it was about 12:45 at night. Some were in
the shelter, but we were in our home," said Manal Hassan `Alawiyya, a neighbor.
"Suddenly we heard a plane flying low. The plane dropped a bomb, and all the
windows in our house were blown out. My fianc took me down to the shelter, and
he went to help the people at the house."[92]The
strike killed nine members of the `Awada family: Hassan Mahmud `Awada, age 43,
a shoemaker and clothes shop owner; his son Hussain Hassan `Awada, three; his
sister Jamila Mahmud `Awada, 45; his sister's husband, Musa Naif `Awada, 45, a
schoolteacher; and their five children `AliMusa `Awada, 17; `Abir Musa `Awada, 16; Hassan Musa `Awada, 12; Maryam
Musa `Awada, 10; and Muhammad Musa `Awada, six. Thirteen other
occupants of the home survived, including six children and five women. None of
the people in the house had any connection to Hezbollah.

According to a villager from `Aitaroun, most of the
civilians fled `Aitaroun after Hezbollah began to fire rockets from inside the
village and the deadly Israeli air strikes on the two homes in the village on
July 16 and 17: "When our house was hit, almost all of the civilians left the
village. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets from inside the village."[93]

Human Rights Watch also established that Hezbollah fighters
fired rockets nearby homes in the mixed Christian-Shi`a village of Yaroun,
located just one kilometer north of the Israeli border. A witness from the
village showed Human Rights Watch researchers the center of Yaroun, which
Israeli strikes had virtually completely destroyed, and explained:

Hezbollah were shooting from the houses on the hill [in the
center of town] with their Katyushas. The people were still in the town then,
but not in the houses on the hill; the closest inhabited house was probably
about 100 meters away. That neighborhood [where they were firing from] was
almost completely destroyed. They were also shooting from the [unpopulated]
valley behind the village. We can't go there now because of the [Israeli
unexploded] cluster bombs.[94]

However, in most cases investigated by Human Rights Watch,
Hezbollah fighters located themselves and their weapons outside populated
areas, at positions often prepared years in advance of the conflict, and had
only a fleeting presence in populated areas. A young Hezbollah fighter in
Zebqine village explained that Hezbollah militants had prepared "the
infrastructure"-caves to store rockets and launchers, access roads, and
launching sites-in the rural valleys surrounding Zebqine for the past six
years, and had pre-positioned the rocket launchers and rockets in these
positions before the war:

We have two valleys from which we fired Ra`ed missiles at Israel,
one on each side of the village. We've been preparing the infrastructure and
the roads for six years ... The rockets are stored in the valleys.[95]

On one occasion, he said, a truck carrying Hezbollah
militants in Zebqine had mounted at least one rocket launcher on a Mitsubishi
truck, and during the war the truck broke down inside Zebqine as Hezbollah was
moving the mobile rocket launcher from one valley to another, passing through
the village. Israeli drones quickly located the missile launcher, and warplanes
launched an immediate strike, destroying the truck and four nearby empty
residences: "The rocket launcher was just being moved from one valley to the
other," he explained.[96]

According to villagers and officials interviewed by Human
Rights Watch, Hezbollah fighters stayed mostly outside the villages during the
war, firing their rockets from the pre-prepared positions outside the villages.
(Hezbollah fighters did confront Israeli troops on the ground when the Israeli
troops entered Lebanon near the end of the war, after most civilians in the
area had fled; some of the fiercest and deadliest fighting involved ground
combat in the border villages of Maroon al-Ras, Bint Jbeil and `Aita
al-Sha`ab.)

According to the former mukhtar
of Hadatha, Hajj Abduljalil Salman Nasr, who remained in his village until the
initial 48-hour ceasefire on July 31, 2007 and is not associated with Hezbollah,
the village leadership had prohibited Hezbollah fighters from entering his
village, and so Hezbollah had fought from prepared positions in the surrounding
valleys:

At the time I was present in the village, the resistance
was not inside the village. It was prohibited for them to fire rockets from
inside the village; they had to go outside the village. The villagers do not
allow the resistance to shoot from inside the village. The fighters made a lot
of caves where they could hide [outside the village]. They have a Landrover
with 8-12 missile launchers mounted on it, and their caves are at least two
meters deep. When they launch, they move the vehicle out and back in. So the
missile launcher stays in the field. It is prohibited to bring such weapons
into the village; the villagers do not allow it because it would bring a
catastrophe on them.[97]

A Hezbollah logistics and communications officer who
remained in Hadatha throughout the war and participated in the fighting in the
area supported the mukhtar's version
of events. He told Human Rights Watch: "We were firing rockets from outside the
villages. We did not fire one missile from a civilian area [in Hadatha].
However, when the direct confrontations took place, the fighting did take place
between the houses. There were two houses in the village where we would go to
bake bread."[98]

In the village of al-Jibbain, located just north of the
Israeli border, 81-year-old `Ali Muhammad `Akil, a tobacco farmer, told Human
Rights Watch about the Hezbollah fighters and rocket positions around his
village. He explained that Hezbollah fighters did move through his village on
occasion during the war, but that he had not seen them fire rockets from the
village:

There is no Hezbollah position inside the village; they just
move around. They fire their rockets from outside the village and from the
edges of the village. Then Israel
fires back. When Hezbollah fires a rocket from near a village, Israel
fires back at the village.

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of four Hezbollah
fighters in al-Jibbain-the only fighters killed in that village-lend support
for `Akil's description of their activities. On August 3 or 4, an Israeli air
strike killed four Hezbollah fighters (Hassan Sami Musalamani, `Ali Sami Musalamani,
Hassan Ahmad `Akil, and `Abbas Ahmad `Akil) in an uninhabited valley some 900
meters from the nearest homes, apparently as they were firing rockets at
Israel. Human Rights Watch researchers tried to visit the area where the four
militants were killed, but a municipal official (who consulted with a Hezbollah
commander on his mobile phone) prevented them from doing so until the site
could be "cleaned up."[99]

The case of the village of `Ain B`al is a typical example.
According to a villager of `Ain B`al, "We told [Hezbollah] not to fire from our
town, and they agreed and fired from the orchards."[100]
A second villager from `Ain B`al, Hussain `Ali Kiki, told Human Rights Watch
how a cluster bomb injured his legs and killed his friend, `Ali Muhammad Abu
`Eid, after the war when they returned to their orchard between Batulay and Ras
al-`Ain (villages adjacent to `Ain B`al). He described the presence of
Hezbollah rocket launching pads in the nearby fields:

The field I was in at the time I was injured did not have
launching pads. However, fields next to it did. At the beginning, the Israelis
were firing most of the cluster bombs on places where there were rocket
launchers. But after that, they started throwing them everywhere.[101]

Human Rights Watch found similar cases of rocket launcher
locations throughout the vast banana and citrus groves located along the coast
south of Tyre.
In the village of Mansouri, Hezbollah militants had fired rockets from banana
plantations located along the coast; Israeli return fire resulted in the
destruction of a beachside home occupied by the militants and damage to nearby
civilian structures, including a private guesthouse.[102]
In the village of
QuLaila, just north of Mansouri,
an unexploded Israeli cluster bomb injured the foot of 49-year-old Salih Ramez
Karashet in his citrus orchard. He explained that Hezbollah had used his
orchard to fire rockets: "There was definitely a military objective in the
orchards. When we returned to the orchards [after the war], we found the
remains of Hezbollah rocket launchers and exploded rockets."[103] On
August 6, IDF commandos raided a building on the outskirts of Tyre
that a Hezbollah team occupied, firing long-range rockets from nearby citrus
groves into Israel.
The raid killed at least two Hezbollah fighters, but the launching of
long-range rockets continued from those same citrus orchards until the end of
the war.[104]

Israel's
own firing patterns in Lebanon
support the conclusion that Hezbollah fired large numbers of its rockets from
tobacco fields, banana, olive and citrus groves, and more remote, unpopulated
valleys. Throughout southern Lebanon,
Israel
subjected such agricultural areas to heavy bombardment with 155mm and 77mm
artillery rounds, as well as with M-26 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS)
with M77 submunitions, a form of cluster weapon designed specifically to
suppress, neutralize, and destroy launch locations. Israeli radar was able to
locate some Hezbollah launch locations after a rocket was airborne, allowing
IDF artillery teams to respond with artillery rounds and M77 submunition fire
as an area-effect weapon, in an attempt to kill the launch crews as they
escaped and to disable the rocket launcher itself. A large number of the groves
and agricultural lands contaminated by duds and marked by artillery impact
rounds from such strikes were located at least at the periphery of populated
areas, although other suspected Hezbollah launching sites targeted by artillery
and M77 cluster rounds were in much more remote and uninhabited valleys.

During and immediately after the war, Hezbollah cleared up a
number of military sites that Israel
had hit, removing destroyed rocket launchers and other weapons evidence.
According to a top international demining official in Lebanon, "We did find a couple of
Katyusha [rocket launchers] while cleaning up, but Hezbollah has generally
cleaned things up themselves."[105]

D. Claims of Hezbollah "Human Shielding" Practices

Israeli officials have repeatedly accused Hezbollah of using
the Lebanese civilian population as "human shields" by deploying their
forces-fighters, weapons, and equipment-in civilian areas for the purpose of
deterring IDF attack. On many occasions, Israeli officials blamed these alleged
shielding practices as the primary cause for Lebanese civilian deaths. The
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website carries a typical statement:

The Hizbullah terrorists in Lebanon have purposely hidden
themselves and stockpiled their missiles in residential areas, thus endangering
the surrounding populations. Indeed, many of the missiles recently fired at Israel were stored and launched from or near
private homes, commandeered by Hizbullah terrorists wishing to shield their
actions behind civilians in order to thwart Israel's response.[106]

Similarly, in response to the July 30 Israeli Air Force
strike on the village of Qana that killed 27 people, IDF Chief of Staff Dan
Halutz blamed Hezbollah for the deadly incident, stating "The Hezbollah
organization places Lebanese civilians as a defensive shield between itself and
us while the IDF places itself as a defensive shield between the citizens of
Israel and Hezbollah's terror. That is the principal difference between us."[107] On July
19, the IDF stated that "Hezbollah terrorists have turned southern Lebanon
into a war zone, and are operating near population centers there, using
civilians as human shields."[108] On the
same day, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, told
CNN: "We are trying to minimize hurting civilians, but when Hezbollah uses
civilians as human shields, sometimes civilians will get hurt."[109]

As discussed in the legal chapter of this report (see
above), the laws of war specifically prohibit the use of civilians as "human
shields" to prevent the enemy from attacking:

The presence or movement of the civilian population or
individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune
from military operations, in particular attempts to shield military objectives
from attacks or to shield, favor or impede military operations. The Parties to
the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or
individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from
attacks or to shield military operations.[110]

A key element of the humanitarian law violation of shielding
is intention: the purposeful use of civilians to render military objectives
immune from attack.

As noted above, we documented cases where Hezbollah stored
weapons inside civilian homes or fired rockets from inside populated civilian
areas. At minimum, that violated the legal duty to take all feasible
precautions to spare civilians the hazards of armed conflict, and in some cases
it suggests the intentional use of civilians to shield against attack. However,
these cases were far less numerous than Israeli officials have suggested. The
handful of cases of probable shielding that we did find does not begin to
account for the civilian death toll in Lebanon. (The related issue of
Hezbollah's illegally using several UN posts near the Lebanon-Israel border as
shields is discussed in the next section.)

In addition to its own research, Human Rights Watch
carefully reviewed local and international press accounts, IDF and Israeli
government statements, and the work of various independent think tanks to
evaluate allegations of human shielding by Hezbollah. While the Israeli
government and certain commentators have described Hezbollah shielding as
widespread, they have not provided convincing evidence to support such
allegations.[111] The
Israeli government provided some video footage taken from drones showing
Hezbollah fighters firing rockets from what appear to be civilian structures,
or entering such structures, but the footage gives no indication whether these
structures were inhabited by civilians or located in then-populated areas.

The Israeli government's allegations seem to stem from an
unwillingness to distinguish the prohibition against human shielding-the
intentional use of civilians to shield a military objective from attack-from
that against endangering the civilian population by failing to take all
feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm, and even from instances where
Hezbollah conducted operations in residential areas empty of civilians.
Individuals responsible for shielding can be prosecuted for war crimes; failing
to fully minimize harm to civilians is not considered a violation prosecutable
as a war crime.[112]

To constitute shielding, there needs to be a specific intent
to use civilians to deter an attack. For example, during the 2003 conflict in Iraq,
Human Rights Watch documented the use of human shields by Iraqi forces.
Witnesses observed irregular Iraqi armed forces (known as fedayeen) confronting coalition troops with women and children as
human shields, lining up women and children in front of their vehicles to
prevent coalition troops from attacking them, and placing women and children on
their vehicles when attacking coalition positions.[113]

Many of the allegations of widespread shielding highlight
cases that, upon closer examination, do not show that they are said to
demonstrate. For example, one of the most widely reported incidents of alleged
human shielding by Hezbollah occurred in the village of `Ain Ebel, a Christian
town approximately five kilometers from the Israeli border and a former stronghold
for the Israeli-backed South Lebanese Army (SLA), a force opposed to Hezbollah.[114]
Christian villagers fleeing the village of `Ain Ebel complained about Hezbollah
tactics, telling the New York Times that "Hezbollah came to [our
village] to shoot its rockets . . . They are shooting from between our houses."[115] Another
villager told a blogger that Hezbollah fired at a convoy of fleeing civilians
to prevent them from leaving because it wanted to use the civilians of `Ain
Ebel as "human shields."[116]

Human Rights Watch visited `Ain Ebel multiple times to
investigate these allegations. Our investigation revealed that Hezbollah
violated the prohibition against unnecessarily endangering civilians when they
took over civilian homes in the populated village, fired rockets close to
homes, and drove through the village in at least one instance with weapons in
their cars.[117] However,
the available evidence does not demonstrate human shielding-the purposeful use
of civilians to deter an attack-in `Ain Ebel. Hezbollah did not seize any
inhabited houses in the village; even witnesses that criticized Hezbollah's
behavior agreed that Hezbollah took over only houses that had no one in them.[118] While
Hezbollah fired rockets from within the village, none of the witnesses
interviewed by Human Rights Watch claimed that Hezbollah fired from or near
homes that were populated at the time, or fled into populated areas of the
village after firing their rockets. According to a local villager, Hezbollah's
firing took place from fields next to the village that it had taken over after
the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, and where it had placed bunkers and rocket
launchers.[119]
Hezbollah had prevented villagers from visiting these fields, in part because
it feared the villagers might report on its activities.

We also interviewed individuals who were in a convoy that
reportedly came under Hezbollah attack, allegedly to keep them from fleeing the
village. On July 24,around 9:30a.m., a convoy of 17 cars containing
villagers from `Ain Ebel and persons displaced from other neighboring villages
came under machine-gun fire as their convoy crossed a hilly area on the
immediate outskirts of `Ain Ebel, referred to as Tal Massoud. The area was the
scene of earlier machine-gun fire between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli
soldiers. Individuals in the convoy told Human Rights Watch that the fire came
from the north side of the road, from behind a restaurant named "GrandPalace,"
and that the fire must have come from Hezbollah as Israeli troops had not yet
made it to that side of the road.[120]
The fire hit the first five to six cars in the convoy and injured up to 11
civilians. There were contradictory reports about whether anyone died, with
some witnesses stating that no one died, while others thought that a Shi`ite
man from `Aitaroun died.[121] None of
the individuals interviewed saw the men who fired on them.

Despite the gravity of the incident, it is unclear whether
Hezbollah fired on the convoy to prevent the villagers from leaving, or whether
the villagers were caught in crossfire between Hezbollah and the IDF.
Ambulances transferred the wounded to a Hezbollah-run hospital, Salah Ghandur,
for treatment; the wounded later walked to Tibnine before ambulances
transferred them to safety in Tyre.[122] Other
cars left `Ain Ebel in the following days without any problems.[123]

According to almost all of the witnesses interviewed by
Human Rights Watch throughout Lebanon,
Hezbollah fighters and officials evacuated their offices as soon as the
conflict began and often warned other occupants in the same building to also
evacuate. Even when not warned, militants, as well as residents in
pro-Hezbollah neighborhoods or living close to known Hezbollah officials, often
evacuated their homes of their own accord, knowing from past Israeli bombing
campaigns that Israel
would target the homes and offices of Hezbollah officials and militants.

For example, Mukhtar
`Adil Amar, the village leader of Mashghara, a mixed Shi`a and Christian
village in the southern Beka` Valley, explained to Human Rights Watch: "The
Hezbollah [members] were not staying in their homes. When the war started, they
all left . A house in the lower neighborhood was hit, the house of [a
Hezbollah member], but no one died in that strike."[124]
Michel Habbush, a Christian worker at the electricity company in Mashghara,
confirmed the Mukhtar's account in a separate interview:

The upper neighborhood of Mashghara doesn't have many
Hezbollah members. Most of the Hezbollah members lived in the lower
neighborhood, and that neighborhood was empty since the beginning of the war .
Those who are in Hezbollah left at the beginning of the war, because they knew
they were in danger. The people living near Hezbollah members, they also left
their homes immediately when the war started.[125]

Human Rights Watch did not document any cases where
Hezbollah fighters returned to their home villages with the intention of using
a civilian presence to shield themselves from attack. While many Hezbollah
fighters, often fighting near their own villages, remained in contact with
their families and sometimes visited them, and while several Hezbollah fighters
died together with civilians in Israeli strikes on villages, in the cases we
examined, eyewitnesses told us that the fighters were killed while checking on
or assisting villagers.

E. Hezbollah Firing from Near UN Positions

Although Human Rights Watch found only a limited number of
cases where Hezbollah fighters fired weapons from populated civilian areas,
there is strong evidence to suggest that Hezbollah fired much more frequently
from the vicinity of UN outposts in southern Lebanon. According to reliable
UNIFIL records, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets on an almost daily basis from
close proximity to UN observer posts in southern Lebanon, often drawing retaliatory
Israeli fire on the nearby UN positions as a result. There are two likely
motives for this conduct, which are not mutually exclusive. On the one hand,
the hills on which most observation posts are located are also good places from
Hezbollah's perspective for firing on Israel. On the other hand,
Hezbollah commanders may have at times selected those positions for firing
because the presence of UN personnel made it more difficult for Israel
to counterattack. Insofar as the latter consideration motivated Hezbollah
combatants, that would constitute shielding.

Peacekeeping forces are not parties to a conflict, even if
they are usually professional soldiers. As long as they do not take part in
hostilities, they are entitled to the same protections under the laws of war
afforded to civilians and other non-combatants.[126]
Deploying military forces or materiel near a UN base or outpost would violate
at the very least the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid harm to
noncombatants if there were feasible alternatives. Intentionally using the
presence of peacekeepers to make one's forces immune from attack amounts to
human shielding.[127]

The UNIFIL statements issued during the conflict demonstrate
that Hezbollah fighters fired from the vicinity of UN positions on a near daily
basis and that this frequency increased as the fighting intensified.[128]

On
July 19-20, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the immediate vicinity
of the UN positions in Naqoura and Maroon al-Ras. The IDF responded with
shelling of the areas, and 10 IDF artillery shells fell inside the UN
position at Naqoura, while four IDF artillery shells fell inside the UN
position in Maroon al-Ras, causing extensive material damage to both UN
positions.[129]

On
July 25-26, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of four UN
positions: `Alma
al-Sha`ab, Tibnine, Bar`ashit, and al-Tiri. The same period, an Israeli
precision-guided missile destroyed a UN observer post at Khiam, killing
four UN observers (a case discussed below), but there was no Hezbollah
firing reported from near this position.[130]

On
July 26-27, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of four UN
positions: Marwahin, `Alma A-Sha`ab, Bar`ashit, and al-Tiri.[131]

On
July 27-28, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of five UN
positions: `Alma
a-Sha`ab, al-Tiri, Beit Yahoun, and Tibnine. UNIFIL noted that "[t]he
number of troops in some Ghanaian battalion positions is somewhat reduced
because of the increased safety risk of troops due to frequent incidents
of Hezbollah firing from the vicinity of the positions, and shelling and
bombardment close to the positions from the Israeli side."[132]

On
July 28-29, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of UN
positions on six occasions: Tibnine (twice), al-Tiri, Beit Yahoun, and
`Alma Sha`ab (twice).[133]

On
July 29-30, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of three UN
positions: Tibnine, al-Tiri, and Bar`ashit. Hezbollah fighters also fired
small arms from the vicinity of two UN positions: `Alma al-Sha`ab and al-Duhayyra.[134]

On
July 30-31, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of three UN
positions: `Alma al-Sha`ab (where Hezbollah
fighters also fired small arms from the vicinity of the UN position),
Tibnine, and al-Tiri, leading to IDF aerial bombardment in the vicinity of
the `Alma
al-Sha`ab UN position.[135]

On
July 31-August 1, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of
three UN positions: Tibnine, Haris, and al-Tiri.[136]

On
August 1-2, Hezbollah fighters fired four rockets from the vicinity of a
UNIFIL team and Lebanese Army Engineering Contingent sent to the village of Srifa to assist with the recovery
of bodies from the rubble. The IDF responded with shelling, forcing the
withdrawal of the UNIFIL team from the recovery effort. Hezbollah fighters
also fired rockets from the vicinity of three UNIFIL positions: Tibnine,
al-Tiri, and `Alma
al-Sha`ab.[137]

On
August 2-3, two Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israeli targets struck the
UNIFIL position in Houla, causing extensive material damage but no
casualties. Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of four UN
positions: `Alma
al-Sha`ab, Marwahin, Tibnine, and al-Tiri.[138]

On
August 3-4, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of two UN
positions: `Alma
al-Sha`ab and al-Tiri.[139]

On
August 4-5, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of one UN
position, Tibnine.[140]

On
August 5-6, a Hezbollah mortar round fell on the Headquarters of the
Chinese UNIFIL contingent at Hinniyya, wounding three Chinese observers.
Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of three UN positions:
Tibnine, al-Tiri, and Beit Yahoun.[141]

On
August 6-7, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets twice from the vicinity of
the UN position in Houla, and also fired multiple rockets from the
vicinity of the UN position in Tibnine, leading to IAF air strikes on the
area around the UN position.[142]

On
August 7-8, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of the UN
position in Tibnine, leading to IAF air strikes on the area around the UN
position for a second day.[143]

On
August 8-9, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of two UN
positions, al-Tiri and Tibnine.[144]

On
August 9-10, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from close by the UN
position in Houla, and from the vicinity of three UN positions: Labouneh,
Tibnine, and al-Tiri. Four Hezbollah mortar rounds landed inside the
UNIFIL position at Deir Mimess, causing extensive material damage.[145]

On
August 10-11, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of four
UN positions: Labouneh, Tibnine, Bar`ashit, and Haris. Hezbollah fighters
also fired upon a UNIFIL armored car moving north of Naqoura, and a
Hezbollah Katyusha rocket fell on the UNIFIL Headquarters in Naqoura,
causing material damage and lightly wounding a French soldier.[146]

On
August 11-12, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets from the vicinity of two UN
positions: Tibnine and al-Tiri.[147]

On
August 12-13, UNIFIL did not report any cases of Hezbollah fighters firing
rockets from the vicinity of UN positions, but did note that a Hezbollah
missile fell directly inside the UN position in Ghanduriyeh, causing
material damage but no casualties.[148]

On
August 13-14, the last period of fighting prior to the cessation of
hostilities, UNIFIL did not report any cases of Hezbollah fighters firing
rockets from the vicinity of UN positions, but did note that Israeli
forces fired at least 85 shells directly inside UN positions at Tibnine,
Haris, al-Tiri, and Marun al-Ras, causing "massive material damage to all
positions."[149]

As noted above, Hezbollah should take immediate steps to
ensure that this illegal conduct is not replicated in any future conflict.[150]

F.
Hezbollah Combatants in Civilian Clothes

On the few occasions that Human Rights Watch researchers
encountered Hezbollah fighters in the field during the conflict, those
Hezbollah fighters were invariably dressed in civilian clothes, and often had
no visible weaponry on them. Especially away from the frontlines, Hezbollah
fighters appear to have operated in small cells of fighters, dressed in
civilian clothes and maintaining contact with each other as well as Hezbollah
fighters in other cells with handheld radios.[151]
Away from active areas of combat, Hezbollah fighters were normally unarmed,
keeping their weapons out of sight until needed. Only during active
confrontations with Israeli forces did some Hezbollah fighters, particularly
Hezbollah's elite fighters, fight in military uniforms.[152]

While the humanitarian law applicable during the Israeli
conflict with Hezbollah placed no obligation on those participating in the
hostilities to wear uniforms,[153] the
routine appearance of Hezbollah fighters in civilian clothes and their failure
to carry their weapons openly put the civilian population of Lebanon at risk.
Since Hezbollah fighters regularly appeared in civilian clothes, Israeli forces
would have had difficulty distinguishing between fighters and other male,
fighting-age civilians, and such difficulty increased the dangers of IDF
operations to the civilian population of Lebanon. However, the failure of
Hezbollah fighters to consistently distinguish themselves as combatants does
not relieve Israeli forces of their obligation to distinguish at all times
between combatants and civilians and to target only combatants.[154] The
difficulty of making that distinction does not negate Israel's obligation. In cases of
doubt, a person must be considered a civilian and not a legitimate military
target.[155]

VII.
Israeli Conduct During the War Civilian Deaths

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was responsible for serious
violations of the laws of war during its conflict with Hezbollah. Israeli
attacks in Lebanon
resulted in the deaths of at least 1,109 Lebanese, the vast majority of whom
were civilians. This report is based on in-depth investigations of over 94
separate cases of Israeli air, artillery, and ground attacks that claimed 510
civilian lives and 51 combatants, or nearly half of the Lebanese deaths in the
conflict.

Human Rights Watch's research shows that the primary reason
for the high Lebanese civilian death toll during the conflict was Israel's
frequent failure to abide by a fundamental obligation of the laws of war, the
duty to distinguish at all times between military targets that can be
legitimately attacked, and civilians, who are not subject to attack. This was
compounded by Israel's
failure to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian casualties.

Our research into more than 94 attacks shows that Israel
often, even though not deliberately attacking civilians, did not distinguish
between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects as required by
humanitarian law. The chief cause of this wrongful and deadly selection of
targets was Israel's assumption that Lebanese civilians had observed its
warnings to evacuate all villages south of the Litani River, and thus that no
civilians remained there. As a result, Israel
targeted any person or vehicle south of the LitaniRiver
on the grounds that they were part of the Hezbollah military apparatus. Israel
also engaged in widespread bombardment of civilian areas that was
indiscriminate, which endangered many of the civilians who had remained behind.
In addition, in the Dahieh section of southern Beirut, this danger of this presumption was
compounded by the Israeli tendency to treat all people and buildings associated
with Hezbollah, however vaguely, as legitimate military targets.

The officials best positioned to explain the reasons for the
high civilian casualty toll are the Israeli military officials who reviewed and
decided what to target and participated in post-strike battle damage assessments
(BDAs). During past research projects into the civilian casualties caused by
the air wars in Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003), Human
Rights Watch researchers obtained from US, NATO, and coalition military
personnel relevant information that helped identify the specific causes for the
civilian casualty figures in those conflicts. However, despite repeated
requests from Human Rights Watch, Israeli officials refused to allow Human
Rights Watch to interview the relevant Israeli military officials who could
provide such information.[156]

A. Israel's False Presumption of No Civilian Presence and
Ineffective Warnings to Evacuate, With Resultant Indiscriminate Bombardment and
Indiscriminate Targeting of All Visible Persons or Vehicles in Southern Lebanon or
the Beka` Valley as "Hezbollah"

(i) False Presumption of No Civilian Presence

Israeli officials often justified their extensive
bombardment of southern Lebanon
by advancing the erroneous assumptions that (i) all civilians had fled the areas
under attack and (ii) only Hezbollah members or their supporters remained in
the south and therefore anyone who remained was a legitimate military target.
For example, IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz stated on July 28 that "Bint Jbeil
was aerially bombed and [hit with artillery] to the extent that we calculated
to be sufficient [before introducing ground troops]. This is not a humanitarian
issue, as Bint Jbeil was empty of citizens and surrounded by terrorists both
inside and out."[157] The IDF
also applied this argument to justify its bombardment of the southern suburbs
of Beirut. On
July 17, Eliezer Shkedi, commander of the IAF justified the massive, nightly
IDF air raids on apartment buildings in the suburbs by stating that "in the
center of Beirut
there is an area which only terrorists enter into."[158]

It is questionable whether Israeli officials really believed
the assumption that there were no Lebanese civilians left in southern Lebanon,
or simply adopted such a formal assumption to defend their actions. Evidence
suggests that Israeli officials knew that the assertion that all civilians had
fled was erroneous. At the time of the Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon,
stories about Lebanese civilians dying in Israeli strikes or trapped in
southern Lebanon filled the Israeli and international media. In addition,
foreign embassies were in regular contact with Israeli diplomats with requests
to assist with the evacuation of their nationals caught in the fighting in
southern Lebanon.
And in some instances, Israel
seemed to know exactly how many people remained in a village. On July 24, Dan
Halutz, the IDF chief of staff, estimated that 500 residents remained in Bint
Jbeil despite IDF warnings to leave.[159]

Israel
must have known from its past conflicts in southern Lebanon that a civilian population
is rarely able or willing to leave its homes according to timetables laid down
by a belligerent military.[160]
Reporting 10 years ago on fighting between Hezbollah and Israel during July
1993, Human Rights Watch found that it was "reasonably foreseeable that a
segment of the population might not flee, and it was entirely foreseeable that
in particular the old and indigent would not be able to evacuate their homes,
especially considering the brevity of time between the first warnings and the
beginning of the shelling."[161] In this
war, not only were these outcomes foreseeable, they were based on the
precedents of Israel's
previous wars in Lebanon.
Israel
should have known that civilians would remain in their villages throughout the war
and should, at the very least, have modified its targeting practices in light
of the reports of increasing civilian deaths. Considering Israel's experience in past conflicts in Lebanon and the real time information of
civilian deaths streaming through the media, Israel's
decision to treat southern Lebanon
effectively as a free-fire zone would make Israel responsible for
indiscriminate attacks on civilians. Commanders who knowingly or recklessly
ordered such attacks would be subject to prosecution for war crimes.

Even if civilians who remained did so because they were
Hezbollah supporters-a claim contradicted by Human Rights Watch's research,
which found that most of those who remained behind stayed because they were too
old, poor, or sickly to leave-Israel would not have been justified in attacking
them. The political leanings of the civilian population in a given area or
village is irrelevant as far as their civilian status is concerned. Only
civilians who directly participate in hostilities, that is, commit acts that by
their nature or purpose are likely to cause harm to the personnel and equipment
of the enemy (or provide direct combat support to combatants) are subject to
attack. Otherwise they are protected against attack like any other civilian.

Israel's
position that anyone who remained in southern Lebanon was a legitimate military
target was based in part on Israeli claims that the IDF had sufficiently warned
civilians to leave. On July 27, Israeli justice minister Haim Ramon said that Israel had given civilians in southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area, and
therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah
supporter: "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are
related in some way to Hezbollah."[162]Commenting on attacks on Hezbollah infrastructure in Baalbek, he said that once the IDF has asked
the civilians to evacuate, it is permissible to bomb those areas.[163]

While international humanitarian law requires effective
advance warning to the civilian population prior to an attack where
circumstances permit,[164] those
warnings do not relieve Israel
from its obligations at all times to distinguish between combatants and
civilians and to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm.
That is, issuing warnings in no way entitled the Israeli military to treat
those civilians who remained in southern Lebanon as legitimate targets of
attack or to ignore their presence for considerations of distinction and
proportionality.[165]

Despite the many Israeli warnings, a significant number of
Lebanese civilians remained in every village in the south. Many were too afraid
to travel on the roads, because Israeli attacks targeting persons on the roads
occurred on a daily basis, even when those fled immediately after warnings. Others
did not have transport to flee, as vehicles gradually emptied out of the south
or were destroyed on the roads, or they could not afford the extremely high
fares charged by drivers willing to take the risk, often amounting to thousands
of US dollars per vehicle. Many of those who stayed behind were too old,
infirm, or sick to be moved, and they died in disproportionate numbers from air
strikes during the war. And many rural Lebanese civilians had their life
savings invested in their homes, livestock, and agricultural fields, and so
were unwilling to leave these precious resources behind.

After the war, Daniel Carmon, the deputy Israeli ambassador
to the United Nations, defended Israel's
actions in Lebanon by
arguing that "There is hardly any distinction between Hezbollah and the
civilian population [in southern Lebanon]. This whole region was a
region in which you could not make the distinction between one and the other."[166] In fact,
even if it was difficult for Israel to distinguish between civilians and
Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon because Hezbollah fighters frequently
did not wear distinguishing uniforms or bear arms openly, Israel was required
by a fundamental obligation of the laws of war to distinguish at all times
between combatants and civilians, and to refrain from launching attacks if it
could not be sure that it was targeting combatants rather than civilians, or if
the anticipated harm to civilians would have been disproportionate to the
military gain Israel hoped to achieve. The difficulty of making such
distinctions did not negate Israel's
obligations.

(ii) Ineffective Warnings to Evacuate

Israel's
assumption that the civilian population had emptied southern Lebanon is especially problematic because Israel's
warnings were often ineffective. Under international humanitarian law, a
warning should notify the civilian population of the dangers of an imminent
attack, but should also give them a realistic opportunity to evacuate the area.[167]

The IDF initially issued warnings to the residents of
southern Lebanese villages to leave, followed by increasingly urgent warnings
for all civilians south of the Litani River to evacuate their homes and head to
areas north of the Litani for their safety. However, Israel failed generally to give
affected Lebanese civilians a realistic opportunity to evacuate.

First, most warnings reviewed by Human Rights Watch did not
provide sufficient time for people to evacuate, especially given that most
roads in southern Lebanon remained under bombardment. For instance, in
Marwahin, the IDF gave only a two-hour warning before a threatened attack and
hit a convoy fleeing Marwahin.[168] IDF
warnings often either gave an unrealistically short time frame for civilians to
leave the area, or where so vague as to give almost no indication to the
civilian population of how or when they were supposed to evacuate.

Second, despite repeated appeals from United Nations and
other humanitarian officials, Israel
failed to create safe passage corridors for evacuating civilians.[169] Israel
claims to have created humanitarian corridors during the conflict, but these
corridors existed only in northern Lebanon to allow humanitarian agencies the
ability to move humanitarian supplies to Beirut and did not extend into the
active conflict zone in southern Lebanon. And even these limited humanitarian
corridors focused on the movement of humanitarian supplies, not on safe
evacuation routes for civilians.

Third, Israeli forces on numerous occasions attacked
civilians fleeing southern Lebanon,
which gave civilians two dangerous options: staying put or driving on the road.
A villager from `Aitaroun, who lost his mother when his car came under attack,
told Human Rights Watch the difficulty he faced in making his decision:

We were scared during the bombing so we had all assembled
in the depot [storage facility] across the street. After the second [deadly IDF
attack in `Aitaroun], we got really scared. It became difficult to come and go
I had received calls from relatives in Beirut
to leave. On Tuesday July 18, my neighbor and two other cars left. We were
worried about leaving and decided to wait until we saw if they made it.[170]

The fear that had prevented people from fleeing became
apparent when thousands of people took to the road after Israel announced a 48-hour
suspension of air strikes starting on July 31.

Fourth, many warning flyers were too general to be helpful
and did not provide specific instructions or a time-frame for civilians to
evacuate. For example, on July 25, the IDF issued the following flyer and
issued the same warning in pre-recorded phone calls to Lebanese officials
(emphasis in original):

To the People of Lebanon

Pay Attention to these instructions!

The IDF will intensify its activities and will heavily bomb the entire
area from which rockets are being launched against the State of Israel.

Anyone present in these areas is
endangering his life!

In addition, any pickup truck
or truck traveling south of the LitaniRiver will be suspected
of transporting rockets and weapons and may be bombed.

You must know that anyone traveling in a pickup truck or truck is
endangering his life.

The State of Israel

The flyer simply stated that anyone present in areas from
which rockets are being launched was in danger, without identifying where those
areas were. It did not identify possible safe roads. Another IDF flyer dropped
on July 27 ordered all villagers south of the Litani, an area home to some
500,000 people, to move northward (the same order was also made in a separate
flyer on July 25)[171] (emphasis
in original):

To residents of the region

For your personal safety

Read this announcement and act
accordingly

Rockets are being fired against the State of Israel from your area.

The Israeli Defense Forces will operate at full force against these terrorist
groups effective immediately.

For your own safety, you must leave immediately, and travel northwards.
Anyone who remains is putting himself in danger.

The State of Israel

In the words of the Commission of Inquiry set up by the UN
Human Rights Council to investigate Israeli attacks on Lebanon, "[i]f a
military force is really serious in its attempts to warn civilians to evacuate
because of impending danger, it should take into account how they expect the
civilian population to carry out the instruction and not just drop paper
messages from an aircraft."[172]

(iii) Indiscriminate Targeting of All Visible
Persons or Movement of Persons or Vehicles as "Hezbollah" in Southern Lebanon and the Beka` Valley

Coupled with its wrongful assumption that southern Lebanon
had been emptied of its civilian population, the Israeli military also seems to
have determined that any vehicular or personal movement in southern Lebanon
could be considered the movement of Hezbollah forces, and often targeted
vehicles and other movements of persons on that basis. A blanket warning by the
IDF on August 7 to the Lebanese population best summarized this assumption:
"all vehicles, of any type, traveling [south of the LitaniRiver]
are liable to be attacked, endangering those traveling in the vehicles. Any
person who violates these instructions endangers himself and his passengers."

As explained above, however, a large number of civilians did
remain in southern Lebanon.
Many were ill or bedridden, or were taking care of sick or elderly relatives,
stayed behind to look after livestock, or simply were too poor to leave.
Although these civilians remained inside their shelters for most of the time,
on occasion they had to move within their homes and shelters or outside to get
food, water, or other supplies. In many instances, Israeli drones and warplanes
then struck their shelters after noticing the movement. In many of the
instances documented by Human Rights Watch, Israeli air strikes killed
civilians soon after they entered or exited a shelter. In all likelihood, the
Israelis were not even aware of the number of civilians inside the shelter when
deciding to launch an attack, and had made no evident effort to find out.

In one typical case, Sa`da Nur al-Din, a 53-year-old
housewife, was staying in a shelter below a home in al-Ghassaniyeh with some 40
other civilians. At about 6 p.m. on July 25, she briefly left the shelter and
drove her car to collect some food items from her home, as food supplies were
running out inside the shelter. As she returned to the shelter, an Israeli
drone fired a missile at her car just as she entered the parking area next to
the shelter. The drone strike severely damaged the car and wounded Sa`da, but
she survived the attack.[173]

-

Sa`da Nur al-Din, 53, with her car
which was hit by an Israeli drone-fired missile as she drove to collect food
supplies in al-Ghassaniyeh on July 25, 2006.She escaped with minor injuries.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch documented many similar attacks that
appeared to be based solely on the movement of persons or vehicles. For
instance, on August 10, Israeli warplanes struck a home in the village of Rabb al-Talatine, killing four women,
soon after the women had carried a wounded relative (one of the four women
killed) from one home to another home. On August 7, an Israeli air strike
killed five civilians in Insar, apparently after they left a home on foot after
an evening of socializing.

(iv) Indiscriminate Bombardment

Israel's
bombardment of southern Lebanon
was widespread. Israeli warplanes launched some 7,000 attacks against targets
in Lebanon,
supplemented by massive artillery and naval bombardments.[174]
Israeli air strikes completely destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes during
its bombing campaign. In some villages, homes completely destroyed in the
Israeli bombardment numbered in the hundreds: 340 homes completely destroyed in
Srifa; 215 homes completely destroyed in Siddiquine; 180 homes complete
destroyed in Yatar; 160 homes completely destroyed in Zebqine; more than 750
homes completely destroyed in `Aita al-Sha`ab; more than 800 homes completely
destroyed in Bint Jbeil; 140 homes completely destroyed in Taibe. The list
throughout Lebanon's
southern region is extensive. According to many people interviewed by Human
Rights Watch, much of this destruction-like the massive barrage of cluster
munitions fired into southern Lebanon-took place in the final days of the war.

Although Israel
destroyed many of the homes with precision-guided missiles, there is no
evidence of a Hezbollah military presence throughout these villages that would
have justified this enormous "collateral damage." As explained above, Human
Rights Watch's research indicates that the vast majority of Hezbollah rockets
and fighters were placed outside these villages.

In addition to the targeted strikes against people or homes
assumed to be affiliated to Hezbollah,
Israel carried
out a massive number of strikes on the area from where Hezbollah launched
rocket attacks, even if the launchers were long gone, with apparent disregard
for possible civilian casualties or the destruction of civilian property. Area
denial, the targeting of a land area to deny it to the enemy, is a permissible
tactic under humanitarian law, but it remains subject to the prohibitions on
indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. Area denial traditionally concerns
closing off land to the enemy to block communications and movement (such as a
mountain pass) or for tactical advantage (channeling an attack or guarding a
retreat).[175] As one
influential scholar notes, however, while a specific land area can be regarded
as a military objective, "[a]dmittedly, the incident of such locations cannot
be too widespread: there must be a distinctive feature turning a piece of land
into a military objective (e.g. an important mountain pass; a trail in the
jungle or in a swamp area; a bridgehead; or a spit of land controlling the
entrance of a harbor)."[176]

In an article published in Haaretz on April 2, 2007,
two senior military correspondents reported that, following the war, an IDF
internal investigation found that "the Artillery Corps shot approximately
170,000 munitions [shells] during the war, most of it [fired] to the
approximate direction of the areas of launching. How many Hezbollah people were
hit as a result? A senior officer in the Armored Corps says that if it turns
out that five were killed he would be surprised."[177]

In the vast majority of the cases of civilian homes
destroyed by Israeli strikes, the homes were empty, and there were no civilian
casualties. However, as mentioned above, many civilians did not leave their
villages, and a number of them died inside their houses, their bodies found
under the rubble after the end of the war. The widespread bombardment showed
little attempt to discriminate between military objectives and civilians and
civilian structures. Nor does it seem that proper assessments were made of
relative anticipated military advantage and civilian harm.

B. Attacks
on Presumed Hezbollah Targets and Inadequate Precautions

(i) Hezbollah Targets

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that Israel
considers all parts of Hezbollah-its military wing, the Islamic Resistance, as
well as its extensive political, social, and welfare branches-to be part of an
integrated terror organization. As a result, Israel designated any person or
office associated with Hezbollah, regardless of whether such persons took an
active part in hostilities or merely supported Hezbollah's political or welfare
activities, as legitimate military targets. During the conflict, IDF
spokesperson Jacob Dallal told the Associated
Press:

[Hezbollah] is a
terrorist institution, a terrorist organization that has to be debilitated and
crippled as much as possible and that means [destroying] its infrastructure,
that means its television, its institutions . In the war on terror in general,
it's not just about hitting an army base, which they don't have, or a bunker.
It is also about undermining their ability to operate . That ranges from
incitement on television and radio, financial institutions and, of course,
other grass-roots institutions that breed more followers, more terrorists,
training bases, obviously, schools.[178]

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council on July 21,
2006, Israel's
permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Dan Gillerman, also rejected any
distinction between Hezbollah's military and political structures, describing
Hezbollah as a "cancer" that had to be "removed without any trace":

The world has learned how deeply [Hezbollah] has penetrated
Lebanese society . We have been aware, for years, of this deadly, cancerous
growth, insidiously invading this beautiful, potentially prosperous country,
and we have warned about the danger repeatedly . This cancer must be excised.
It cannot be partially removed or allowed to fester. It must be removed without
any trace, or, as cancers do and will, it will return and spread, striking and
killing again.

We are told of a so-called "political branch" of
[Hezbollah]. Do not be misled by this ruse-an attempt to paint a kinder face on
cold-blooded terrorists who are intent on cold-blooded murder. The [Hezbollah]
member of parliament and the terrorist in the hills launching rockets at
Israeli civilians both have the same strategy and goal. These labels cannot be
allowed to give legitimacy to a gang of thugs.[179]

The IDF's own summary of its bombing campaign identifies
some 1,800 air strikes, out of a total of some 7,000, that were carried out
against "Hezbollah-associated structures," a category distinguished from the
300 air strikes carried out against "Hezbollah military infrastructure
(headquarters, bases, and rocket-launchers)."[180]
While the IDF summary does not define "Hezbollah-associated structures," our
research indicates that a large number of private homes of civilian Hezbollah
members were targeted during the war, as well as a variety of civilian
Hezbollah institutions such as schools, welfare agencies, banks, shops, and
political offices, in addition to Hezbollah military infrastructure and the
homes of Hezbollah combatants.

In many of the villages and towns visited by Human Rights
Watch, villagers identified the homes of Hezbollah civilian officials, empty at
the time of the air strikes, that had been destroyed by Israeli air strikes.
Since most civilian as well as military Hezbollah officials evacuated their
homes as soon as the war started in anticipation of Israeli air strikes
targeting them-even their neighbors often evacuated their homes for the same
reason-the death toll associated with air strikes targeting actual Hezbollah
civilian officials is low. The death toll in southern Beirut was also low despite the massive
destruction caused by Israeli bombardment, because entire neighborhoods such as
the Dahieh were completely evacuated in anticipation of Israeli air strikes.

Human Rights Watch did document a few cases in which
civilians were killed during air strikes on civilian Hezbollah-affiliated
targets during the war. On July 13, the first day of massive air strikes,
Israeli warplanes destroyed the home of Shaikh `Adil Muhammad Akash, an
Iranian-educated Shi`a cleric believed to be associated with Hezbollah, killing
him, his wife, his 10 children aged between 2 months and 18 years, and their
Sri Lankan maid. There is no evidence (and the IDF has not alleged) that Shaikh
Akash was involved in Hezbollah military activities, and according to villagers
he was solely a religious leader in Dweir village. On July 23, an Israeli
warplane fired at the Nabi Sheet home of Dr. Fayez Shukr, a former Minister of
State (1995-1996), a leading member of the Lebanese Ba'ath Party and a
political ally of Hezbollah, killing his 71-year-old father.

In most cases in which civilian deaths did occur as Israel
attempted to target civilian (or even military) Hezbollah officials, the main
reason for the deaths was Israel's use of unreliable or dated intelligence that
led to the misidentification of a particular building as Hezbollah-related, or
Israel's failure to take adequate precautions to limit civilian casualties
during strikes on presumed Hezbollah targets, particularly the homes of
suspected Hezbollah militants.

Israel's
broad definition of legitimate Hezbollah targets is particularly evident in the
pattern of attacks on the densely populated southern suburb of Beirut, Dahieh. In their
attacks on this largely Shi`ite district of high-rise apartment buildings,
Israeli forces attacked not only Hezbollah military targets but also the
offices of Hezbollah's charitable organizations, the offices of its
parliamentarians, its research center, and multi-story residential apartment
buildings in areas considered supportive of Hezbollah.[181]
Human Rights Watch research did establish that Hezbollah maintained a weapon
storage facility in at least one civilian apartment building in the Dahieh, and
that armed Hezbollah fighters sheltered together with civilians in at least one
civilian basement in the Dahieh, but did not find widespread evidence of such
unlawful Hezbollah practices which would have justified the extent of Israeli
bombardment of this civilian area.

Statements by Israeli officials strongly suggest that in
launching its massive attacks in southern Beirut,
the IDF did not limit itself to Hezbollah military targets, as required by the
laws of war. Such statements when by persons in the chain of command may be
evidence of criminal intent necessary for demonstrating the commission of a war
crime. These government statements suggest that, contrary to the laws of war,
the entire neighborhood was targeted because it was seen as pro-Hezbollah, and
that some of the attacks may have been unlawful retaliation for Hezbollah
attacks against Israel.
Following the July 16, 2006, Hezbollah rocket strike on the Haifa train station
that killed eight workers, Israel's Defense Minister Amir Peretz was quoted as
stating, shortly before the IDF mounted a fierce bombardment of Dahieh: "For
those who in live in the Hezbollah neighborhood in Beirut and feel
protected-the situation has changed." [182]
Further, according to a senior Israeli Air Force officer, "the equation was
created by [IDF Chief of Staff] Halutz that every rocket strike on Haifa would
be answered by [Israeli Air Force] missile strikes on 10 12-story buildings in
the [Dahieh]," although the IDF later tried to deny that Halutz had made such
an equation.[183]

IDF warplanes also attacked Hezbollah's TV station, al-Manar,
and its radio station, Nour. The law
considers media installations potential dual-use facilities during hostilities,
as they can have both a military and civilian application. However, media
installations become legitimate military targets only if they make "an
effective contribution to military action" and their destruction offers "a
definitive military advantage."[184] While al-Manar TV and Nour radio certainly served as propaganda outlets for Hezbollah,
Human Rights Watch is not aware of any IDF allegation that the broadcaster
engaged in direct support of military activities such as by directing troop
movements. When the IDF attacked al-Manar's
broadcasting facilities on the night of July 12, it issued a statement which
did not refer to any direct military role by al-Manar:

The Al-Manar station has for many years served as the main
tool for propaganda and incitement by Hizbullah, and has also helped the
organization recruit people in its ranks.[185]

Supplying propaganda for Hezbollah does not make al-Manar a
legimitate military target.[186] No other
information available to us would justify the attack.

International humanitarian law forbids direct attacks
against "civilian objects," such as homes and apartments, places of worship,
hospitals, schools, or cultural monuments, unless the building is being used
for military purposes, or persons within the building are taking a direct part
in the hostilities.[187] Simply
because a civilian building may have some association with Hezbollah does not
make it a legitimate military target. Even if a legitimate target exists within
a building, the attacking party must still make a proportionality assessment,
ensuring that the expected value of destroying the military object to be
attacked outweighs the likely impact of the attack on civilians and civilian
infrastructure.

(ii) Inadequate Precautions in Attacking Presumed Hezbollah Targets

International humanitarian law requires warring parties to
do everything feasible to verify that targets are military objectives.[188]Israel's
campaign against presumed Hezbollah leaders and forces failed in its objectives
but was a primary cause of civilian casualties in the conflict. Despite destroying
or damaging tens of thousands of homes during its bombing campaign, many of
them in precision-guided strikes against presumed Hezbollah targets, Israel
failed to kill a single national Hezbollah leader and was unable to destroy or
neutralize Hezbollah forces. An examination by Human Rights Watch of the
circumstances in which more than 150 Hezbollah fighters died-probably
approximately more than half of the total number of Hezbollah fighters killed
in the conflict-shows that the vast majority died in ground-based firefights
with Israeli forces, not in the widespread air strikes on residential areas
during the early stages of the conflict.[189]
By contrast, almost all of the civilians killed during the conflict either died
inside homes bombed by Israel
or in civilian cars while trying to flee.

Particularly at the beginning of the war, Israel used hundreds of
precision-guided bombs to demolish homes where Israeli intelligence must have
indicated a Hezbollah target. However, in the vast majority of these cases,
Israeli intelligence was plainly wrong: the buildings targeted had no Hezbollah
presence or links inside. Even during its first bombing raids on July 13, when Israel
would have targeted the structures for which it had the strongest intelligence
information, Israeli air strikes hit some Hezbollah weapons stores and homes of
Hezbollah militants, but also a significant number of homes with no Hezbollah
links at all, killing dozens of civilians. This pattern of precision-guided
strikes on civilian homes would continue throughout the war, indicating that
Israeli intelligence on Hezbollah targets was severely flawed, that the IDF
took insufficient action to address the problem, or that the IDF simply stopped
caring about civilian casualties after it issued warnings to the civilians to
evacuate and wrongfully assumed that those who remained behind were all
Hezbollah militants.

The IDF's own investigations into the conduct of the war
confirm this view. In an article published in Haaretz on April 2, 2007,
two senior military correspondents reported that, following the war, an IDF
internal investigation revealed that the IDF's Northern Command had only 83
Hezbollah targets on its list of potential targets, and that these targets ran
out by the fifth day of the war, on July 16, 2006.[190]
The article goes on to state that following the exhaustion of prepared targets:

The solution that was to put together, as it becomes clear
from an [internal] investigation that was conducted after the war in the
intelligence corps and the IAF [Israel Air Force], was the rapid creation of
new targets as the war progressed. In the case of launchers that were localized
while firing, the success was high (IAF [sources] are proud that every
mid-range launcher which fired rockets was destroyed promptly thereafter). But
a large portion of the other targets which were attacked were futile targets
which were created out of nothing, points that were marked based on various
analyses, without it being clear that they contain a valuable target.[191]

The most devastating example of a failure to take adequate
precautions was the attack on the last night of the war on the Imam Hassan
building complex, in the Rweiss neighborhood of southern Beirut. The massive air strike involved an
estimated 20 large missile strikes on the housing complex, killing at least 40
persons. Human Rights Watch found no evidence that senior Hezbollah officials
were present at the complex or of underground bunker structures during an
inspection of the site on October 30, 2006, and witnesses interviewed by Human
Rights Watch stated that they did not believe senior Hezbollah officials had
visited the complex during the war, or that there was any other Hezbollah
association with the complex.

Another typical example of failure to take adequate
precautions was the Israeli attack on the town of al-Ghaziyeh on August 7 and
8. Israeli warplanes bombed a number of targets in the town, killing a total of
26 persons. It appears that many of the targets were associated with a local Hezbollah
leader from the town, Amin Khalifa. Israel bombed his neighbor's house
and the homes and shops of his brothers, none of whom were Hezbollah
combatants. All indications are that Khalifa himself was not in al-Ghaziyeh
during the war, including on the days that the attacks took place.[192]

In addition, the Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah
personnel failed to take into account the predictable reality that almost all
Hezbollah members, military and civilian, had abandoned their homes as soon as
the war started, clearly aware from previous experience, such as the 1993 Operation Accountability and 1996 Operation Grapes of Wrathbombing campaigns that Israel would
target Hezbollah members and infrastructure.[193]
A typical example was Israel's
strike on a three-story apartment building in Bint Jbeil on July 15 that led to
the death of two civilians. Hezbollah had rented an apartment in the building,
but it had been empty since the war began. The only people left in the building
were two civilians unrelated to Hezbollah, who were killed in the air strike:
Khalil Ibrahim Mrouj, age 85, and his daughter, Najwa Khalil Mrouj, 60.[194]

Even civilians living near potential Hezbollah targets
immediately evacuated their homes in most cases, aware of the danger. Generally,
it was the civilians who did not live close to Hezbollah targets that chose to
remain in their homes, and all too often were completely surprised by the
attacks that occurred. Time and again, survivors of deadly attacks told Human
Rights Watch, "We stayed in our homes because we believed we would be safe."

Human Rights Watch previously investigated a similar but
more restrictive targeting practice, used by the US military against senior Iraqi
leadership targets during the 2003 war. The US practice differed significantly
in scope from the Israeli practice in Lebanon, as the US limited itself to
targeting a small group of very senior Iraqi leaders (including President
Saddam Hussain and his deputies), while Israel appeared to be targeting the
entire infrastructure of Hezbollah. Our investigation of US targeting of Iraqi
leaders concluded:

The United
States used an unsound targeting methodology
that relied on intercepts of satellite phones and inadequate corroborating
evidence .... This flawed targeting strategy was compounded by a lack of
effective assessment both prior to the attacks of the potential risks to
civilians and after the attacks of their success and utility. All of the fifty
acknowledged attacks targeting Iraqi leadership failed. While they did not kill
a single targeted individual, the strikes killed and injured dozens of
civilians.[195]

The civilian cost of Israel's much wider targeting of the
entire Hezbollah organization, including its political and social welfare
institutions, was much greater than that of the more limited US campaign
targeting the Iraqi leadership, but was based on similar faulty intelligence.

VIII.
Civilian Casualty Incidents Investigated by Human Rights Watch

During the course of five months of research in
Lebanon and Israel, Human
Rights Watch investigated in depth the deaths of over 561 persons during
Israeli air and groundstrikes, and collected information about an additional
548 deaths, thus accounting for a total number of 1,109 deaths (approximately
860 civilians and approximately 250 combatants[196]) from
the 34-day conflict. Our research is the most comprehensive available
documenting how, and why, civilians died during the conflict.

In order to give as complete a picture of the Israel
military campaign as possible, this section provides details on 94 attacks
involving the deaths of 510 civilians and 51 Hezbollah fighters that we
investigated in depth. The relevant details of these attacks-date, time, place,
GPS coordinates, deaths, and mode of attack-are also summarized in a table
annexed to this report.

Most of the cases described suggest humanitarian law
violations; however, the mere fact of civilian casualties does not mean that a
humanitarian law violation occurred. While many of these attacks involved
solely civilian deaths with no evidence of military objectives, others did
strike a legitimate military target. Accordingly, not all of the cases included
in this chapter involve violations of the laws of war by Israeli forces since
we also include cases of legitimate military strikes by the Israeli forces that
resulted solely in combatant casualties (from Hezbollah or other military
groups), or combatant and collateral civilian casualties.

In other cases included in this chapter, unlawful Hezbollah
actions-including the unlawful storage of weapons in civilian homes and firing
of rockets from populated civilian areas-contributed directly to deadly Israeli
counterstrikes. Because the media reported some of these cases as involving
only civilian casualties, we have included them in this report to clarify the
circumstances. Our findings make clear that not all civilian casualties are
indicative of a violation of the laws of war. However, as demonstrated in the
case studies below, the vast majority of cases involving civilian casualties
involved solely civilian casualties, with no evidence of any military
objectives in the vicinity.

There still is no complete list of all deadly attacks that
took place inside Lebanon
during the 34-day conflict, as many Israeli strikes were and continue to be
unreported and undocumented. In almost all of the southern Lebanese villages
visited by Human Rights Watch, researchers found new, previously undocumented
and unreported cases of civilian and Hezbollah deaths. Human Rights Watch did
not visit every village in southern Lebanon, and it is nearly certain
that there are many more cases of civilian deaths that are not included in this
report or reported elsewhere.

In many cases of civilian and Hezbollah deaths, moreover,
there were no witnesses, and no reliable information exists regarding the
circumstances of the deaths. This is especially true in the case of deaths
involving Hezbollah fighters, since Hezbollah often refused to discuss the
circumstances surrounding the deaths of their fighters. There are also many
cases of civilians, especially elderly civilians, who were found dead in the
rubble of their homes after the war, without any witnesses knowing exactly when
and why the home had been struck. In addition to the cases of 510 civilian and
51 Hezbollah deaths documented by Human Rights Watch in this section of the
report, Human Rights Watch obtained some information about an additional 548
deaths, mainly from visiting graveyards and reviewing hospital records, but
does not know the exact circumstances of those deaths. Taken together, Human
Rights Watch can thus account for a total of 1,109 deaths (approximately 860
civilians and approximately 250 combatants) from the 34-day conflict.

This chapter breaks the deaths into several categories:
those due to attacks striking civilian homes, those due to attacks on civilian
vehicles fleeing the conflict, collateral civilian deaths in strikes on
infrastructure, and unlawful killings by Israeli ground forces. Each section
includes a discussion of legitimate attacks on Hezbollah military targets, in
order to give as complete a picture of the Israeli campaign as possible.

A. Attacks on Civilian Homes

Following the initial bombing on July 12 of southern roads,
bridges, villages, and Hezbollah targets for the stated purpose of preventing
Hezbollah from moving the two captured IDF soldiers, Israel began a more
widespread bombing campaign against suspected Hezbollah targets just before 4
a.m. on July 13, carrying out pinpoint strikes on suspected Hezbollah members'
homes and weapons stores. Israel
claims to have destroyed most of Hezbollah's long-range missiles in this
early-hour raid (which reportedly lasted 34 minutes).[197]
Human Rights Watch found that many of those strikes killed only civilians, although
at least one hit a Hezbollah weapons store.

Killing of 10 Civilians in Baflay, July 13

At around 3:50 a.m. on July 13, two air strikes completely
destroyed the two-story home of Munir Zain, and killed 10 persons inside. Zain
was a farmer who also owned a truck used to collect the garbage in his village of Baflay,
10 kilometers east of Tyre.
Ahmad Roz, a 46-year-old salesman who lived just 150 meters from the Zain home,
described the attack to Human Rights Watch:

There was a big air strike between Baflay and al-Shehabiyye.
We could see that attack from our home and were watching. Suddenly we heard a
loud noise and saw a bright flash. Our doors were blown open. All we saw coming
from the Zain house was smoke. Then there was a second strike.[198]

Munir Zain's cousin, Qasim Zain, a 24-year-old who worked
for the Lebanese Civil Defense and assisted with the recovery effort after the
strike, recalled being dumbfounded by the level of destruction. "Everything was
destroyed; the biggest pieces we found were single bricks. I've witnessed the
result of a lot of air strikes, but had never seen anything like this. The
entire area was covered with grey dust, and the two-story building was
completely flat."[199]

Those killed in the attack include: Munir Zain, 47; his wife
Najla, 42; his five children `Ali, 19, a Lebanese army soldier; Wala, 18;
Hassan, 13; Fatima, seven; and Hussain, four; two Kuwaiti nationals who had
arrived a week earlier, Haidar bin Nahi, 40, Munir's son-in-law, and Abdullah
bin Nahi, 70, Haidar's father; and a Sri Lankan maid whose name was unknown to
witnesses.[200]

The villagers of Baflay and the Zain family denied that
Munir or his family had any links to Hezbollah. His cousin, Qasim, said:

I was surprised that it was my uncle's house that was hit
Munir was a farmer with livestock, and he also used to collect the garbage. He
was not involved with the resistance, and if he was with the resistance he
would not have stayed in his house. All the Hezbollah people left their homes
on the first day, with their families.[201]

Other villagers also said that Munir had no connection to
Hezbollah, and that there was no Hezbollah military activity in the vicinity of
his home at the time of the attack.[202]
Hezbollah has not claimed any of the people killed in the attack as fighters or
martyrs; there are no Hezbollah martyr posters for the family, and they have
been buried as civilians, a strong indication that they had no links to
Hezbollah.

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the Zain
home. A field visit to the Zain home reveals a possible explanation. It is
located at the very outskirts of Baflay, at the end of a dead-end road with an
unpopulated valley and olive groves behind it; Munir had his garbage truck
parked next to the home. It is possible that the IDF mistook the location of
the home and the presence of the truck as signs of a Hezbollah rocket firing
position, as Hezbollah often fired truck-mounted missiles from unpopulated
areas on the outskirts of villages. The initial wave of Israeli strikes
reportedly targeted Hezbollah's long- and medium-range missiles. According to a
report compiled by the IDF-affiliated Intelligence and TerrorismInformationCenter, Hezbollah fired a
number of rockets from and near Baflay during the war.[203]
However, all the villagers interviewed by Human Rights Watch were consistent in
stating that there was no Hezbollah military activity in the vicinity of
Munir's home prior to the attack, so it is unlikely the Israeli attack was in
response to evidence of actual Hezbollah rocket fire from the location.

Killing of Four Civilians in Srifa, July 13

At around 3:50 a.m. on July 13, an IDF air strike demolished
the home of 34-year-old `Akil Merhi, a Brazilian-Lebanese dual national,
killing him, his wife, and his two young children. Fatima Musa, a Srifa
resident who lived just next to the Merhi home, described what happened that
night to Human Rights Watch:

First they hit a school building at night, from Wednesday
[July 12] to Thursday [July 13], starting at around 3:30 to 4 a.m. Then, they
hit the house just behind us. We didn't hear the airplanes, we just heard the
rocket [explosion]. We were sleeping and woke up when the house lit up from the
explosions. My son was shivering with fear.[204]

Akil Merhi was a Brazilian-Lebanese businessman who lived
and worked in Brazil,
and had returned to Srifa for a summer holiday just one month prior to his
death. He was well-known in Srifa for his generosity to his home village and
used much of his business earnings to help develop Srifa, but was not
affiliated with Hezbollah. According to his relatives, Merhi, like many
Lebanese, had spent the night discussing the July 12 Hezbollah abductions and
the subsequent events with his friends in Srifa, who included Shi`a religious
figures, "Sayyids and Shaikhs," but "it was not a Hezbollah meeting."[205] Merhi
left his friend's house at 3 a.m; his home was struck as soon as he entered it
and turned on the light: "When he entered the house and turned on the light,
the missile came, so they were targeting him," a cousin recalled. "He was still
dressed in his [going-out] clothes when we found his body."[206]

In a statement, the IDF claimed to have struck "two
Hezbollah bases" in Srifa on that day.[207]

The family of four killed in the attack were all Brazilian-Lebanese
dual nationals: `Akil Merhi, 34; his wife Ahlam Jaber, 25; and their children `Abd
al-Hadi, 9, and Fatima, 4. Hezbollah claimed
neither `Akil nor his wife as martyrs or fighters, and they are buried as
civilians. There are no "martyr" posters of the Merhis to suggest any Hezbollah
affiliation.

According to villagers, fire from Israeli warplanes
initially prevented them from recovering the bodies from the rubble. According
to one witness:

The first time some villagers tried to get the bodies out, a
warplane fired another missile on the home. Eventually we were able to get the
bodies out, but that was about noon. The bodies were buried in the village
around 5 p.m.[208]

There was no Hezbollah activity around the home when the
second missile struck, the villagers said.

Wounding of Three Civilians during Attack on Home of Hezbollah Military
Official, al-Shehabiyye, July
13

At about 3:50 a.m. on July 13, an Israeli air strike hit the
home of Mahmud Baydun, a 45-year-old welder who was also a village-level Hezbollah
military official in al-Shehabiyye, a village located about 10 kilometers east
of the southern port city of Tyre, on the main highway to Tibnine. Baydun was
at home with his wife and five children at the time of the attack. The attack
injured three of Baydun's sons: Samih, 20, Muhammad, 17, and Ahmad, 10, none of
whom were affiliated with Hezbollah.[209]
By remaining in his home, Mahmud Baydun endangered the lives of his civilian
family members. Even if Israel
was targeting a legimate military target (Mahmud Baydun, a Hezbollah military
official) in the strike, Israel
would be responsible for taking into account the likely civilian casualties of
attacking him in his home in determining whether the military gain of attacking
him there outweighed the civilian harm.

Killing of 13 Civilians in Dweir, July 13

On Thursday, July 13, at about 4:00 a.m., Israeli warplanes
struck the home of Shi`a cleric Shaikh `Adil Muhammad Akash, killing the cleric
and 11 members of his family. Shaikh Akash was an Iranian-educated cleric
believed to have been affiliated with Hezbollah, but there is no indication
that he took part in hostilities or had a commanding role, either of which
would have made him a legitimate military target. Hezbollah members in Dweir
told Human Rights Watch that Shaikh Akash was not involved in Hezbollah
military activities, stating that he was simply a religious figure in the
village.[210] However,
Shaikh Akash does appear on a poster of Hezbollah "martyrs" from the village,
indicating he had links with Hezbollah; however, an association alone does not
establish combatant status.

Shaikh Akash taught at a Shi`a religious seminary in Saida
that an Israeli air strike destroyed on July 23. According to some residents of
Saida-a mostly Sunni town that generally does not support Hezbollah-the
seminary where Shaikh Akash taught was a "Hezbollah mosque," and some have made
unconfirmed and questionable claims that Hezbollah used the seminary to store
weapons.[211]

The first missile demolished the two-story home located on
the edge of Dweir, in a sparsely populated area on the road to Jibchit. A
second missile fired minutes later failed to explode. According to an
eyewitness who lived nearby, the Shaikh and his family had returned to the home
just twenty minutes before the strike-many Lebanese families had spent that
night visiting friends to discuss the events of the previous day and the war
that had started. The strike killed Shaikh `Adil Muhammad Akash; his wife Rabab
Yasin, 39; and 10 of their children: Muhammad Baker, 18; Fatima, 17; Zainab,
13; `Ali Rida, 12; Ghadir, 10; Muhammad Hassan, 7; Sara, 5; Batul, 4; Nur
al-Huda, 2; and Safa', two months. The family's Sri Lankan maid, whose name is
unknown to Human Rights Watch, also died in the attack.

Human Rights Watch found no evidence of Hezbollah military
activity during a visit to the bomb site, and Dweir residents also denied that
there had been any Hezbollah military activity around the home. The village of Dweir is located too far from the
Israeli border (40 kilometers) to serve as an effective launching pad for short
or mid-range rockets.

The apparent targeting of Shaikh Akash exemplifies Israel's
targeting of individuals affiliated with Hezbollah regardless of whether they
were participating in military hostilities. Should Israel have information otherwise,
they should make it public, as well as information justifying an attack that
caused so many civilian deaths. This attack on someone who was by all accounts
a civilian cost the lives of thirteen civilians, nine of them children.

Killing of Six Civilians in Shhour, July 13

At approximately 4:00 a.m. on July 13, several missiles
struck the home of German-Lebanese dual national Mustafa Khashab, a 43-year-old
car dealer in Germany who
had come to Lebanon
on June 28 for his summer holiday in his native village. The strike demolished
Khashab's home, and killed Khashab and five of his relatives: his wife Najwa
`Ali al-Medani, 37; their daughter Yasmin, 14; a cousin, Sara Ahmad Yasin, 16;
Mustapha's father, `Ali Amid, 73; and his sister, Khadija `Ali, 48. Mustafa
Khashab's 12-year-old son Ahmad, who was in the bathroom at the time of the
attack, was the only survivor and was transferred to Germany for critical medical
treatment soon after.

According to his relatives, rescue workers, and village
officials, Khashab had no links to Hezbollah, and there was no Hezbollah
activity in or near his home prior to the attack.[212]
An aunt of Mustafa who had visited the home on the evening prior to the attack
and left at about 11 p.m. did not notice any unusual activity.[213]

Khashab had left Lebanon
at age 14 to seek a better life and had permanently settled in Germany.
He had built a home in his native village and often returned for summer
vacations. For the rest of the year, his parents occupied the house. Khashab
and the relatives who died with him are buried as civilians, and there are no
indications on their graves and no martyr posters to suggest membership in
Hezbollah.

Israeli officials have offered no explanation for the attack
on Mustafa Khashab's home. However, one possible reason for the attack is that
Khashab's brother, Safi Khashab, is a "higher-up" member of Hezbollah in Beirut, according to two
sources interviewed by Human Rights Watch in Shhour. The sources did not specify
if Safi Khashab was active on the military or civilian side of Hezbollah.[214] Although
Safi Khashab normally resides in Beirut
and does not keep a home in Shhour, he was visiting his brother in Shhour on
July 12, and left the village that night. Mustafa also tried to leave Shhour to
take his family to safety north of Tyre,
but he was unable to make his way there because air strikes had destroyed the
road.[215] A
relative told Human Rights Watch: "They tried to leave together, but Mustafa's
car was too heavy so he couldn't cross [the river]. He decided to sleep here
and then leave the next day. He was afraid that night, because of the noise
from the drones and the fighter jets."[216]

The Israeli authorities should provide information as to why
they believed the Khashab home was a valid military objective, including
whether they believed Safi Khashab had a military role with Hezbollah, whether
they believed him to be present at the time of the attack and what efforts were
made to determine the extent of a civilian presence, and what calculation of
expected military advantage and civilian harm led them to authorize the attack.

Killing of Two Civilians in Strike on Hezbollah Arms Storage Facility,
Bar`ashit, July 13

On July 13, at around 4 a.m., an Israeli air strike on the village of Bar`ashit
demolished the home of Najib Hussain Farhat, a lottery card seller, and the
unoccupied neighboring home of his brother, who had moved to Beirut in 1996. The air strike killed Najib Hussain
Farhat, 54, and his 16-year-old daughter, Zainab, and severely injured his
wife, son, and daughter.

According to a well-informed source in the village,
Hezbollah had rented the basement of the unoccupied home and had enlarged it
into a "warehouse" to store large numbers of weapons. Neither Hezbollah nor
Najib's relatives had informed Najib or his family about the Hezbollah weapons
cache next door, so they had not felt the need to evacuate their home when war
broke out. The surviving relatives complained to Hezbollah officials about this
incident, and were met first with denials and then with threats from Hezbollah
that it would withhold compensation to the family if they spoke out publicly:

After the incident, the family had a fight with Hezbollah.
At first, Hezbollah denied the allegations, but when the whole town learned of
the incident, they finally admitted it. The person they complained to is also
in charge of compensation for the family, and he delayed the payment to the
family. The family has stopped speaking out because they are afraid they will
lose the compensation.[217]

By storing weapons in the village prior to the start of
hostilities and not warning residents of the danger, Hezbollah violated the
humanitarian law prohibition to avoid locating military objectives in densely
populated areas.

Killing of 12 Civilians in Zebqine, July 13

At 8:20 a.m. on July 13, Israeli warplanes fired two
missiles at the home of Na`im Bzeih, the late mayor of the village of Zebqine
(who died in 2001), located some five kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon
border. At the time of the attack, 14 members of the Bzeih family had gathered
in the house because it was an old stone house with a strong foundation and
thick walls. Darwish, the 42-year-old son of the late mayor, was standing on a
balcony when the attack took place, and recalled:

Suddenly, I found myself in a pile of rubble. The blast of
the explosion blew me 10 meters away, across the road. Everyone on the ground
floor had been killed. I didn't even hear the explosion; I just flew into an
olive grove and woke up covered with dust and shrapnel, bleeding.[218]

Twelve people died in the attack, including six women and
five children: Fatima, 78, Na`im's wife; Taniya, 64, his sister; Maryam al-Hussaini,
54, his daughter-in-law; Su`ad Nasur, 39, Darwish's wife; Amal, 44, Na`im's
daughter; Na`im Wa'il, 18, a grandson; Kholud, 18, a granddaughter; Farah, 14,
a granddaughter; `Aziza, 11, a granddaughter; Malik and his twin Muhammad, 17,
grandsons; and Hussain, 12, a grandson. All of them were buried as civilians,
and Hezbollah has not claimed any of them as fighters or martyrs. It did claim
three other men from the village, who died on separate occasions, as fighters.

The Bzeih family denied any links to Hezbollah. Darwish, who
was wounded in the attack, said: "My father died in 2001. He was the mukhtar for 35 years and never belonged
to any political party. He had no links with Hezbollah. All of us are
independent; we are not with Hezbollah. All of the villagers were surprised
when our house was hit, because people know we are not Hezbollah."[219] A
respected human rights activist, who personally knew the late mayor and his
family, independently told Human Rights Watch that the family had no links to
Hezbollah.[220]

Darwish also confirmed there was no Hezbollah movement or
activity around the house at the time of the attack: "There were no Hezbollah
people around the house or firing from anywhere. We were on the balcony and
didn't see anything."[221]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
Bzeih home. According to the Erlich report, Hezbollah fired two rockets from
Zebqine houses during the war.[222] However,
Hezbollah had not yet begun launching large numbers of rockets at Israel
when the attack on the Bzeih home took place, so it is unlikely that the Israeli
strike was in response to Hezbollah rocket fire.

Killing of Two Civilians and One Hezbollah Fighter, Yatar, July 13

At 3 p.m. on July 13, an Israeli air strike demolished a
home in Yatar, killing three persons inside. Among those killed was an active
Hezbollah fighter, 21 year-old Muhammad `Ali Najib Suidan.[223]
In addition to Muhammad, the strike killed two civilians: his cousin `Ali
Muhammad `Akil, 25, who was a Hezbollah supporter but not a fighter,[224] and
Muhammad's mother, Arwa Jamil, 56.[225]
The civilians accepted the risk of attack by allowing their cousin, a
combatant, into their home, and thus became collateral casualties during a
legitimate military strike on a combatant.

Killing of Four Civilians, including US-Lebanese National, in a Building
with an Empty Hezbollah-Rented Apartment, Bint Jbeil, July 15

At about 8:55 a.m. on July 15, an Israeli warplane fired a
missile at a three-story building in Bint Jbeil, a large town near Lebanon's border with Israel. According to Jamal Sa`ad, a
45-year-old bus driver who lived next door to the building: "We were inside our
house, and the situation was pretty normal. I looked out and saw an Israeli
drone in the sky. One second later, there was a huge explosion next door."[226] The
attack killed Khalil Ibrahim Mrouj, age 85, popularly known as Hajj Abu Naji,[227] and his
daughter, Najwa Khalil, 60.

According to Bint Jbeil villagers, neither of the victims
had any links with Hezbollah: "Hajj Abu Naji was not Hezbollah; he was an old
man who didn't work anymore. The Hajj just lived in his house with his
daughter."[228] Both
were buried as civilians in Bint Jbeil and are not claimed as martyrs by
Hezbollah. However, a neighbor told Human Rights Watch that Hezbollah rented an
apartment in the same three-story building, but it had been empty since the war
had begun:

We were expecting this house to be attacked. It was a
three-story building, and Hezbollah had rented an apartment on the third floor.
We knew it was rented by Hezbollah, but not what for. But there were no weapons
inside Since the first day of the war, there was no one from Hezbollah in
that building The Hajj who died was not related to Hezbollah, and he was not
the owner of the apartment rented to Hezbollah.[229]

After the strike, the villagers searched all over the village
for the two missing people, before realizing they had been inside the collapsed
three-story building. They then mounted a rescue effort: "There were fears that
the place would be attacked again, but people started the rescue effort and it
grew bigger."[230]

While villagers were attempting to dig the bodies out of the
rubble, an Israeli drone fired a missile at the rescue party, killing two
rescuers: Bilal Hreish, 31, a US-Lebanese dual national, and Mahmud Muhammad al-Sa`id
Ahmad, 28. Both were members of Hezbollah's unofficial civil defense (which is
distinct and operates separately from the Lebanese government's civil defense
organization) and properly wore civilian clothes.[231]
The drone strike wounded many others, including two of Hajj Mrouj's sons and a
16-year-old boy, Hashim Kazan, who told Human Rights Watch how he was wounded
in the second attack:

The [unofficial Hezbollah] civil defense was there to help
us [recover the bodies.] Originally, there were about 50 people at the rubble
trying to help us, but then there were only about 10. We were on the rooftop of
the house when we were hit. I didn't hear anything, I just heard the explosion.[232]

Following the deadly attack, the rescue effort was abandoned
and the bodies were recovered only at the end of the war, on August 16.

Hezbollah's rental of building space did not transform the
apartment building into a military objective. Even if Hezbollah were occupying
the building at the time, it still would have been necessary for the IDF to
determine whether it was being used for military purposes. By apparently basing
their attack on dated intelligence information, Israel failed to take all necessary
precautions to determine whether this civilian object was a valid military
target at the time of attack. Even if the Hezbollah apartment was a legitimate
target (for example, by serving a military role) Israel also should have taken
into account the likely civilian casualties of attacking the apartment building
in determining whether the military gain of attacking the Hezbollah office
outweighed the civilian harm.

The drone attack on the rescue party, involving several
bulldozers operating in broad daylight to remove the rubble, appears to have
been a deliberate attack on civilians. Israeli drones, some of which have the
ability to transmit live video footage back to their operators, should have
made it possible for the operators to see the rescue party.

Killing of Two Civilians, Houla, July 15

On July 15, around 8 p.m., an Israeli Apache helicopter
fired two missiles into the home of Ibrahim Slim,[233]
a wage laborer, in the village of Houla, located on the Israel-Lebanon border,
about 25 kilometers east of Tyre. According to Slim, the situation in Houla was
relatively calm at the time, with cars and people out on the street. His son
`Ali, a 30-year-old van driver, had returned from visiting a friend with his
motorcycle just 10 minutes before the attack, and the family of 14 was just
sitting down to dinner when the missiles struck.[234]
The helicopters had been circling over the area for about an hour prior to
launching the missiles.

The attack by guided missiles destroyed most of the home, as
the missiles entered through the front door and exploded inside. The attack
killed two young women: Salma Slim, 23; and Ibrahim's daughter-in-law Zainab
Hassan Fakih, 22, the mother of a 7-month-old girl. It also injured two people:
`Ali Slim, the 30-year-old van driver, and his brother in law `Ali Sa`ad, age
unknown.

Ibrahim told Human Rights Watch that neither he nor his sons
were involved with Hezbollah: "I don't know why my home was attacked. I am not
with Hezbollah, and my sons are not involved with them. I've always prohibited
my sons from being involved with Hezbollah or the resistance."[235] Other
villagers, interviewed separately by Human Rights Watch, also denied that
anyone in the family had links to Hezbollah. "Neither he nor his children were
involved with Hezbollah, nor was there any [Hezbollah] resistance in the town
at the time," said his neighbor, `Ali Rizak.[236]
Human Rights Watch saw no Hezbollah symbols inside the remnants of the Slim
home during a visit. Both women who died in the attack were buried as
civilians.

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
Slim home. According to the Erlich report, Hezbollah fired two rockets from
within Houla houses during the war, on an unspecified date.[237]
However, there is no evidence that the Slim home was one of these houses.

Killing of Three Hezbollah Fighters, Yatar, July 16

At 5 p.m. on July 16, an IDF air strike demolished a
civilian home in the village
of Yatar, located some
four kilometers north of the Israeli border. The air strike killed three
Hezbollah fighters: Hassan `Ali Karim, 22; Hussain `Ali Qurani, 21; and
Muhammad Hussain Ja`far, 23. The graves of the three men clearly identified
them as Hezbollah "martyrs," not civilians. Hezbollah representatives attempted
to prevent Human Rights Watch from investigating the deaths, but a relative of
one of the men killed told Human Rights Watch that the men had stored a
Hezbollah rocket launcher inside the home when they were attacked:

They were actual Hezbollah fighters. They died as fighters.
They had a missile launcher inside the house. They were not firing the missile
launcher from the house. They would go fire it and then come back to the house.
Hezbollah took the [destroyed] rocket launcher away afterwards.[238]

Although the use of a civilian home to store a rocket
launcher places civilians at risk by making it more likely that the IDF will
attack ostensible civilian structures thinking that they are serving a military
purpose, the Hezbollah fighters in this particular case were staying in a home
without a civilian presence, and civilians had largely abandoned the
neighborhood. "The area was empty,"according to the deputy mayor, a leftist
independent unaffiliated with Hezbollah.[239]
The Israeli strike targeting three Hezbollah fighters who were actively engaged
in firing rockets was a legitimate military strike.

Killing of Eight Civilians in Tyre
(Sidon Institute), July 16

Between 12 and 1 p.m. on July 16, Israeli air strikes hit a
residential apartment building at the outskirts of Tyre and an adjoining house owned by Marwan Hussain
Shahin, a Palestinian who operated a butcher shop near the Bass refugee camp.
The building (which people often refer to as the Sidon Institute because it
used to house the educational facility) and house were located next to banana
groves behind the Jabal `Amel hospital.

One of the residents of the building was Yasir `Alawiya, an
accountant who used to work at the Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Institution for
Education and Learning (al-Mu'assasa
al-Islamiyya lil-Tarbiyya Wal-Ta`lim), and at the time of the attack worked
for al-Qard al-Hassan, an
Islamic bank linked to Hezbollah. There is no evidence that Yasir Alawiya took
part in Hezbollah's military activities. His prior affiliation with a
Hezbollah-affiliated organization, or his employment at an Islamic bank, even
if Hezbollah-linked, did not make him a legitimate military target.

Eight members of the `Alawiya family died in the attack on
the apartment building.Yasir Alawiya lost his wife, Marwa al-Hajj Hassan, 26,
and his two children, Batul, 5, and `Abbas, 4. Yasir's brother, `Ali, also lost
his wife and three children as they had sought shelter in Yasir's apartment:
Husn Jaffal, 26, Zainab 9, Hussain, 8, and Aya, 5.[240]
Yasir and `Ali's mother, Maryam Ibrahim, 80, also died in the attack. The Shahin
home adjacent to the building was empty, as its inhabitants had left it the
previous night after the banana groves next to their house had come under
attack.[241]

A neighbor of the `Alawiya family said that there was no
Hezbollah presence in the building.[242]
Human Rights Watch's investigation on the use of the groves behind the hospital
could not conclusively establish whether Hezbollah had used those specific
banana groves to fire rockets, although the fact that these same banana groves
had come under Israeli attack the night prior to the attack on the Sidon
Institute may suggest that Hezbollah rocket fire had originated from there.
Another possibility is that the target was the microfinance institution
affiliated with Hezbollah, al-Qard al-Hassan, located in a neighboring
building.[243]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
building and home.

Killing of 14 Civilians in Tyre,
July 16

Between 5 and 6 p.m. on July 16, two Israeli air strikes hit
a residential apartment building that housed the Lebanese government's civil
defense offices in Tyre
(unaffiliated with Hezbollah) on its first floor, collapsing the top four
floors of the building.[244] The
apartment of Sayyid `Ali al-Amin, the Shi`a mufti of the Tyre and Jabal `Amel regions, and the offices
of former member of parliament, Muhammad `Abd al-Hamid Baydun, were also in the
building. Neither al-Amin nor Baydun is affiliated with Hezbollah-al-Amin is a
frequent and outspoken critic of Hezbollah-nor were they present in the
building at the time of the attack.

Human Rights Watch is not aware of any potential military
target in the building, and Israeli officials have given no explanation for the
attack. The building did have a number of large communication antennas on its
roof, which may have been the target of the attack. The strikes also damaged
three neighboring apartment buildings, eight to 10 stories high.

A report compiled by the IDF-affiliated Intelligence and TerrorismInformationCenter mistakenly identifies the civil
defense force offices in the building as "the Hezbollah headquarters in Tyre," but offers no
evidence to support that assertion. The misidentification of this building in
the report, which is almost exclusively based on a review of Israeli
intelligence, may have formed the basis for the attacks and demonstrates the
failure of the IDF to take adequate precautions to ensure the attack was on a
valid military target.

In Lebanon,
civil defense (which are affiliated with the Lebanese state, not with
Hezbollah) mostly carry out activities such as firefighting and providing
medical and humanitarian assistance during crises. Human Rights Watch found no
evidence that Lebanese civil defense took part in hostilities between Hezbollah
and Israel,
or that Hezbollah fighters were in the building or storing military equipment
there.

According to two residents of the apartment building
interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the building residents were mostly teachers
and doctors from the nearby hospital.[245]
A building resident and the director-general of the civil defense both told
Human Rights Watch that Hezbollah had no presence in the buildings attacked.[246]

Zakaria `Alamadin, 18, had just left the basement of the
apartment building when an Israeli missile hit the building, wounding him.
"Everything just went dark and things were falling on me," he said.[247] Among
those killed in the basement of the building were Zakaria's father, Muhammad Hussain,
a 55-year-old teacher, and Zakaria's 15-year-old brother, `Ali Muhammad.

Muhammad Alamadin, his son `Ali, and seven others killed as
a result of the attack were transferred to Tyre public hospital where they were
temporarily buried during a public ceremony on July 21. The names of the other
seven buried were: Najib Shamsuddin, `Ali Shamsuddin, Haitam Hassan Muzyid, 34,
Hussain Hassan Muzyid, 38, `Alia Wehbi, 40, Sally Wehbi, and Ayman Daher.[248] A tenth
victim, one-year-old Lin `Ali Safeedin, was taken to a Saida hospital and then
buried in her home village
of Sham`a.[249]

A civil defense official in Tyre told Human Rights Watch on August 1 that
two bodies remained trapped in the rubble of the collapsed top floors of the
building, including the body of an unidentified woman.[250]
When Human Rights Watch visited the civil defense building that day, the smell
of decomposing bodies remained.[251]
Following the end of the war, four more victims were identified, for a total of
14 persons killed: Muhammad Yusif Ibrahim, 58; Ibrahim Saksouk, age unknown; Zainab
Fakhury, 66; and Kundbsejen Runjani, a Sri Lankan maid.

Ten staff members of the Lebanese civil defense and 25
volunteers were inside the civil defense offices at the time of the attack.[252]
According to a civil defense official in Tyre,
the attack injured eight members of the civil defense team, including the head
of the civil defense center, `Abbas Ghorayeb, who was hospitalized in critical
condition but has since recovered.[253]

Speaking after his recovery to Human Rights Watch, `Abbas
Ghorayeb explained that dozens of families from neighboring villages had sought
shelter in the basement of the civil defense building, believing that it would
be safe from attack. Because Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was speaking on
television at the time of the attack, many families had gone inside to listen
to his speech, which probably reduced the death toll of the attack.

The civil defense officials were busy organizing a recovery
effort following an earlier air strike at the Sidon Institute (see prior case)
when two missiles struck their building, one on top and another on the side at
street level. Following the strike, falling rubble caused additional casualties
and fatalities, covering the area surrounding the building in rubble up to one
meter deep. Like the other witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch,
Ghorayeb told Human Rights Watch that there was no Hezbollah presence in the
building: "There was nothing in relation to Hezbollah there."[254]

The civil defense headquarters in Tyre, after Israeli
airstrikes on July 16, 2006, that killed 14 civilians and woundedmany
more. Israeli intelligence misidentified the building as the "Hezbollah Headquarters"
in Tyre. 2006
Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

Another witness, a twenty-year-veteran of the civil defense
unit, gave a more detailed overview of the civilian nature of the building and
the lack of any military target inside the building in a separate interview
with Human Rights Watch:

The building was a 14-story building, and it was full [of
civilians in the basement]. Under us, there was a big hall, a warehouse almost,
used as a shelter. There were lots of displaced people who were sheltering
there because they believed the civil defense headquarters would not be
targeted. The upper six floors that were destroyed were empty; there was no
one there except a woman and her Sri Lankan maid.

The building was civilian. There was nothing [Hezbollah] in
it. We have a long history in that building. On the first floor, next to our
office, there is an office of ex-minister Muhammad `Abd al-Hamid Baydun. The
offices of the Mufti of Tyre and Jabal Amel's are on the sixth floor; they were
not hit. On the eighth floor, there was the apartment of the director of
Tibnine government hospital, a Lebanese Army colonel.

There was no Hezbollah around. The entire neighborhood was
appalled by the attack on our building. The people living in these buildings
would have evacuated the area if they had suspected any Hezbollah presence,
just as they did in the case of the buildings that housed the offices of Shaikh
Nabil Qaouk, he is with Hezbollah, and his building was destroyed.[255]

Civil defense organizations play a key role in the
protection of the civilian population. International humanitarian law provides
that they and their personnel must be respected and protected.[256] The same
protections apply to civilians in the course of responding to appeals from the
authorities to perform civil defense functions, even though they are not formal
members of civilian civil defense organizations. Objects used for civil defense
purposes may not be destroyed or diverted from their proper use. The protection
to which civil defense organizations and personnel are entitled shall not cease
unless they commit, outside of their proper tasks, acts harmful to the enemy.[257]

Because there is no evidence that the Lebanese civil defense
committed any acts "harmful to the enemy,"[258]
or that hostile acts had taken place from their installations, the attack on
the civil defense building and its personnel constitutes a serious violation of
international humanitarian law. The building was marked with a sign outside
indicating that the civil defense had its offices there. A high-ranking civil
defense official told Human Rights Watch that the building was not marked on
the roof with the internationally recognized distinctive sign for civil
defense, an equilateral blue triangle on an orange background.[259]

The IDF has stated that it targeted "the headquarters of the
[Hezbollah] organization in Tyre."[260] This
assertion is contradicted by witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch and
field visits by Human Rights Watch researchers.

Killing of 12 Civilians, including Seven Canadian-Lebanese Dual Nationals,
in `Aitaroun, July 16

At 5:50 p.m. on July 16, an Israeli warplane fired missiles
into two homes in `Aitaroun, located just one kilometer north of the
Israel-Lebanon border, killing 12 members of the al-Akhrass family. Among the
dead were seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were residents of Montreal, but had arrived
in their ancestral village of `Aitaroun for their summer holiday just 12 days
before the Israeli offensive began.[261]
A woman who lived 300 meters away from the al-Akhrass homes described the
attack to Human Rights Watch:

For the first two days after the kidnapping of the
[Israeli] soldiers, we heard planes and bombs, but there was no attack on the
village. Starting on the third day, they started bombing the field around `Aitaroun.
We could hear the bombs fall, and they were starting fires in the fields. There
was a family from Canada;
they had come just a few days before the war. They were in the kitchen hiding
when a bomb hit their house. It was around 6 or 7 p.m. We suddenly heard a
plane flying low; it dropped a rocket, and there was a big explosion, with
rubble flying in the air. We were only about 300 meters away. People ran
towards the house to try and save them, but they only found parts of bodies
When we tried to save them, a helicopter would appear in the sky and a warplane
would fly around. So we got scared and stayed away. We recovered between six
and eight bodies, but we were told there may be more, and they were all in
pieces. The shaikh buried them immediately. There were young women among them.[262]

Twelve people died in the attack: `Ali Hassan al-Akhrass,
36, who worked as a pharmacist in Montreal; his wife Amira, 24; and their four
children Saya, 7, Zainab, 6, Ahmad, 3, and Salam, 1; and another woman, Haniya
al-Akhrass, 55, all Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals. Also killed were four
elderly relatives and a young woman, who were all residents of `Aitaroun: Fuda
al-Akhrass, 63; `Ali Ahmad al-Akhrass, 65; Muhammad al-Akhrass, 86; Hassan
al-Akhrass, 85; and Manal Rislan, 17.[263]
All were buried as civilians, and Hezbollah did not claim any of the al-Akhrass
dead as fighters or martyrs. Two seriously wounded members of the al-Akhrass
family were taken to Canada
for medical treatment: Fatima al-Akhrass, 58,
lost an eye in the attack, and Ahmad Hassan al-Akhrass, 30, suffered severe
burns on his body.

Survivors of the al-Akhrass family said that no one in the
family had any links to Hezbollah, and that there were no Hezbollah members or
weapons in the vicinity of the house at the time of attack. A family member
explained:

We are not involved with the resistance, we are business
people. We don't get engaged in politics; we just try and make money. None of
our houses were rented out to Hezbollah, because our family has money so we
don't need to rent out our apartments. And no one was passing in the area when
the attack took place; there was no Hezbollah presence.[264]

Three villagers interviewed separately by Human Rights Watch
also said that the al-Akhrass family had no connection to Hezbollah. They also
denied that Hezbollah was active in the vicinity of the house or inside the
village at the time of the attack. "There was no presence of the [Hezbollah]
resistance inside the village," one witness said, "The positions of the resistance
are around the village, not inside the village."[265]
A second witness told Human Rights Watch: "I don't know why their house was
targeted, because there was no resistance there."[266]
A third villager explained that while `Aitaroun was right on the frontlines,
Hezbollah was not firing from within the village itself at the time of the
attack.[267]

`Aitaroun villagers interviewed after the war told Human
Rights Watch that on the night of the attack on the al-Akhrass home, Hezbollah
was firing only from the outskirts of `Aitaroun. According to these witnesses,
Hezbollah did not begin firing from inside the village until around 10:15 p.m.
on July 17 (see case below), a day after the attack on the al-Akhrass home.[268]

According to the Erlich report, Hezbollah fired
18 rockets from within `Aitaroun houses during the war.[269] However,
there is no evidence that the al-Akhrass home was one of these houses.

The Israeli government expressed its regret over the deaths
and said that "Israel
was fighting Hizbullah and attacking its targets, and was being as careful as
possible not to hurt innocent civilians."[270]

Killing of Nine Civilians in `Aitaroun following Hezbollah Rocket Fire,
July 18

On July 18, at 12:45 a.m., an Israeli air strike hit two
homes in the center of `Aitaroun, killing nine members of the `Awada family.[271]
According to surviving members of the family, Hezbollah fighters had been
firing rockets at Israel from approximately 100 to 150 meters away from their
home a few hours earlier, at around 10:15 p.m. Some of the members of the
`Awada family had already abandoned another home on the outskirts of `Aitaroun,
because Hezbollah had been firing rockets from nearby that home:

Two days before the attack, [an `Awada family member] saw
Hezbollah firing rockets from 50 meters away from her house, which is on the
outskirts of the village. She saw them setting up the rockets and launching
them from 50 meters away. She then fled her house and came to the house in the
center of the village because she thought it would be safer there.

The night of the attack, Hezbollah was firing from inside
the village. They should have stayed out of the village, not fire from inside.
The men of the town should have talked to the fighters . From 100 or 150
meters away from our house, from inside the village, they were firing rockets.
At 10:15 p.m., they were firing rockets from near our house. We heard the
missiles going out.[272]

"We were sleeping; it was about 12:45 at night. Some were in
the shelter, but we were in our home," said Manal Hassan `Alawiyya, a neighbor
"Suddenly we heard a plane flying low. The plane dropped a bomb, and all the
windows in our house were blown out. My fianc took me down to the shelter, and
he went to help the people at the house."[273]

Nine members of the `Awada family were killed in the strike:
Hassan Mahmud, age 43, a shoemaker and clothes shop owner; his son Hussain,
three; his sister Jamila, 45; his sister's husband, Musa, 45, a schoolteacher;
and their five children `Ali, 17; `Abir, 16; Hassan, 12; Maryam, 10; and
Muhammad, six. Thirteen other occupants of the home survived the strike,
including six children and five women. None of the people in the house had any
connection to Hezbollah.

According to the `Awada family, most of the civilians fled
`Aitaroun after Hezbollah began to fire rockets from inside the village and the
deadly Israeli air strike on their home: "When our house was hit, almost all of
the civilians left the village. Hezbollah continued to fire rockets from inside
the village."[274]

Killing of Three Civilians in Tallousa, July 18

At about 9 a.m. on July 18, Israeli war planes attacked the
home of the mukhtar of Tallousa, a
village located some 20 kilometers east of Tyre.[275]
The strike surprised the family while they were about to sit down for breakfast,
and partially destroyed the home. The attack killed three persons: the mother
of the mukhtar, Bahiyya Sulaiman Turmus, 80; `Ali Nabil Turmus, 20, who
suffered from a serious birth defect and was unable to walk or work; and Basil
`Imad Turmus, seven, a Brazilian-Lebanese dual national who was on summer
vacation in the village when the war broke out.[276]
All three are buried in the village as civilians, and Hezbollah has not claimed
them as martyrs.

Although the family and the villagers all claim that the mukhtar and his family had no
connections to Hezbollah, further Human Rights Watch research puts this claim
in doubt. According to a witness interviewed by Human Rights Watch, the mukhtar's son, `Adil, previously had
been a Hezbollah combatant, was captured by Israel,
and was part of a prisoner exchange between Hezbollah and Israel prior to the war. `Adil had
learned Hebrew in Israeli prison and began working for Hezbollah's al-Manar
television after his release. However, `Adil was not in the village at the time
of the attack, and there does not appear to have been a Hezbollah presence
inside the home at the time of the attack.[277]
In any event, even if `Adil had been present in the village, he would not
necessarily have been a legitimate military target, as there is no evidence
that he was taking direct part in the hostilities or was an active member of
the Hezbollah militia.

Killing of One Civilian, Yatar, July 18

At about 4 p.m. on July 17, Israeli warplanes bombed and
destroyed eight homes in the village
of Yatar. Seven of the
homes were empty at the time of the attack, but in the eighth home, the air
strike killed Hussain Slim, a 26-year-old severely handicapped man who was
bedridden and unable to sit, walk, or talk. His mother Munira Salih, 55, a
widow, had just left the home 10 minutes before the strike and returned to find
her home destroyed and her handicapped son buried under the rubble, where his
remains would not be recovered until two days after the war. According to
Munira, only she and her son remained in the neighborhood; the other houses in
the area had been vacated since the beginning of the war. She had not seen any
Hezbollah fighters or weapons in the area of the home, which is in a different
neighborhood than the one where Israel
killed three Hezbollah members in an air strike (see above).[278] Hussain
is buried as a civilian, and Hezbollah has not claimed him as a "martyr."

Killing of Eight Civilians, Sil`a, July 19

At about 2 a.m. on the morning of July 19, Israeli warplanes
carried out a number of bombing raids on the village of Sil`a,
destroying many homes. Zainab Ayyoub, 69, a relative who lived in one of the
homes attacked in the raid, related what had happened to Human Rights Watch:

The evening before, we were sitting outside around a table.
At around 10 p.m., an Apache helicopter came. My brother's son said, "Let's go
inside." There was no electricity since the start of the war, so we used
candles. When the Apache arrived, we went inside the house, closed the doors
and blew out the candle. Around 11 or 11:30 p.m., we went to sleep.

Around 2 a.m., the aerial strikes began all over the
neighborhood The bombing became stronger; all of the windows in our house
were broken. We went down screaming in fear, I came down and saw a window had
fallen on my brother's son and he was wounded in his arms. My brother's legs
were also wounded and bleeding.

I asked where to go, and he said let's go in the bathroom.
All four of us went into the bathroom. We waited there until the raid ended,
afraid the house would be destroyed and we would all die. It lasted for about
an hour. All of the doors were blown open, and we couldn't open the gate
easily; it was stuck because of the rubble . Around 3:30 a.m., [the village]
was just a huge pile of rubble.[279]

Eight people died in the strikes. Five died in the home of
Mustafa Ayyoub, age 69, a farmer: Mustafa himself, his wife `Aliye, 57, his
sister Zainab, 50, her husband, Mustafa Na`im, 60, and a neighbor, Deeb Na`im,
65. Three died in the home of Nizam Ayyoub, 25, a car mechanic: Nizam himself,
his wife Jamile, 20, and their son Ahmad, age one.

According to the villagers, none had any relations with
Hezbollah. According to Zainab Ayyoub, who survived the attack: "Nizam was not
involved with the resistance. I swear to God, none had any relationship with
the resistance. The old people also had nothing to do with the resistance."[280] All
eight victims were buried as civilians, and none has been claimed by Hezbollah
as a "martyr." According to the four villagers interviewed by Human Rights
Watch, there was no Hezbollah presence in the village at the time of the
attack.[281]

Killing of 17 Militants and Five Civilians, Srifa, July 19

Around 3:30 a.m. on July 19, at least three Israeli
warplanes struck at least 13 homes in the "Moscow" neighborhood of Srifa, firing
multiple missiles and collapsing the homes. "At 3:30 a.m., the attacks
started," said Qassim Mustafa Nazal, a resident. "We suddenly heard bombs, one
hit, then two hits at the same time, overall between 12 to 16 rockets hit the Moscow neighborhood."[282]

Rescue workers were unable to reach the village and recover
the bodies during the war, and continuing strikes by Israeli warplanes and
helicopters prevented the local villagers from recovering the bodies
themselves. During the war, Human Rights Watch researchers separately
interviewed six Srifa residents and briefly visited the site of the strikes on
July 31, during the two-day interim ceasefire. During that visit, while
shellfire continued around the village, we found no evidence of Hezbollah
activity or weapons in the area. The villagers we interviewed all stated that
those killed in the attack were civilians, not Hezbollah fighters, and that the
neighborhood that had been hit was not a Hezbollah neighborhood. The only visible
body under the wreckage, that of an elderly woman, seemed to confirm their
testimony. After this preliminary investigation, Human Rights Watch reported in
Fatal Strikes that an estimated 26 civilians had been killed in Srifa.
This allegation turned out to be wrong.[283]

When Human Rights Watch returned to Srifa after the war, on
September 18, 2006, the relatives of the dead immediately stated that the
majority of those who had been killed were armed local militants from
Hezbollah, Amal, and the Lebanese Communist Party, who had been preparing to
resist an incursion by Israeli forces into the village.

Among the homes hit were three separate homes in which
Hezbollah, Amal, and Lebanese Communist Party fighters were living. The strike
on the home where the Amal fighters were living killed two civilians, Kamal
Diab Jaber, 53 (the owner of the house) and his mother Manahil Najdi, 80, and
six armed Amal militants: Kamal's three sons Mahmud, 33, `Ali, 30, and Ahmad,
27, as well as Bilal Hamudi, 27, `Ali Za`rour, 30, and `Ali Nazel, 28. At the
Hezbollah house, the strike killed four Hezbollah militants (no civilians were
present in this house): Hisham Hamudi, 26-28, Wasim Najdi, 28, `Imad Jaber, 27,
and `Ali Najdi, 26. Two Hezbollah militants survived the air strike, but an
Israeli drone-fired missile later killed them as they attempted to flee the
scene of the attack: Fadi Kamaluddin, 29, and Muhammad Kamaluddin, 20. At the
house of the Lebanese Communist Party fighters, four armed Communist Party
militants died, together with four unarmed persons. The armed Communist Party
militants were Ahmad Najdi, 37, Muhammad Najdi, 27, `Ali Najdi, 27, and Hassan
Krayim, 24. The unarmed persons in the same house were `Abbas Amin Dakrub, 20,
`Abbas Mahmud Dakrub, 25, `Ali Haidar, 20, and `Ali Hassan Sabra, 17. The
Communist Party has claimed only the four armed party members as "martyrs,"
suggesting the other four persons who died in the home were civilians.[284]

Human Rights Watch regrets the serious inaccuracy in its
initial Fatal Strikes report, concluding that those killed in Srifa were
civilians, not fighters. In researching this report we have sought to safeguard
against such errors by reinvestigating all of the cases described in Fatal Strikes and seeking out additional
sources and types of evidence. We have sought to corroborate all witness
testimonies with extensive site inspections and visits to graveyards to
establish whether victims were civilians or combatants, and an exhaustive media
search to check for any inconsistencies. The militants killed in Srifa were
buried as military "martyrs," not civilians.

Killing of Seven Civilians, Nabi Sheet (Beka` Valley), July 19

At 7:10 a.m. on July 19, an Israeli war plane fired a
missile at a two-story building in the village of Nabi Sheet,
demolishing the building and killing seven civilians gathered inside. The only
survivor of the attack, 21-year-old Bushra Shukr, told Human Rights Watch that
her family and their neighbors had been sleeping at the time of the attack: "I
was still sleeping at the time. I woke up in the intensive care unit of the
hospital with wounds to my stomach and legs."[285]

Those killed in the attack were all civilians: Bushra's
mother, Khadija Musawi, 43, and her children Muhammad Hussain Shukr, 23, a law
student at ZahleUniversity; Bilal Hussain Shukr, 20, an
accountant at a technical college; Talal Hussain Shukr, 18, and Yasin Hussain
Shukr, 16, students. Also killed were two neighbors: `Ali Sulaiman Shukr, in
his 40s, a carpet salesman, and his wife Hala Shoucair.

All of the victims were buried as civilians, and Hezbollah
has not claimed any as fighters or martyrs. Bushra's father lives in Canada and was not in Lebanon during the summer.
According to the surviving sister, "None of my brothers were in Hezbollah
None of the apartments [in the building] had any Hezbollah people."[286] She was
not aware of any weapons in any of the other apartments.

A pro-Hezbollah businessman in Nabi Sheet told Human Rights
Watch that the family had no relationship to Hezbollah: "Everyone in Nabi Sheet
is with Hezbollah in principle. But none of the people killed had any active
role in Hezbollah, not on the military side or on the political side."[287]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
Shukr home. Bushra's uncle, Bilal Shukr, was a Hezbollah fighter but he died in
the mid-1980s fighting in southern Lebanon.[288]
Khadija Musawi was also a close relative of Abbas al-Musawi, the Hezbollah
secretary-general assassinated by Israel in February 1992, but she
herself had no role in Hezbollah.

Killing of Four Civilians, `Ainata, July 19

On July 19, taxi driver Musa Darwish and two relatives drove
some villagers to safety in Tyre,
returning with a load of bread for the remaining villagers of `Ainata. They
returned to `Ainata around 11:30 a.m. and distributed the bread among the
villagers, before returning home shortly after noon to watch television.[289] About 15
minutes after the men returned home, an Israeli warplane attacked, first firing
a missile into a nearby olive grove and then firing a missile directly at the
home, demolishing the structure. Four family members were killed: the taxi
driver Musa Darwish, 42; his daughter Amal, 16; her cousin Zeynab, 16; and
another cousin Salwa Samih Dakrub, 21. Three other family members were wounded.
All of the dead were buried as civilians, and Hezbollah has not claimed any of
the dead as fighters or "martyrs."

According to the surviving relatives, Musa Darwish and the
others at his house had no links to Hezbollah-they were political supporters of
the Amal party-and were not involved in any militant activity. "He was a driver
and used to drive people away from the village, and when he came back he used
to bring food for us and other villagers," his niece recalled. She was adamant
that there had been no firing of rockets from near their home: "The fighters
were not firing from near here Our families would never accept Hezbollah
firing rockets from near our homes."[290]
Musa's brother, `Ali, who was in a house next to the one where Musa died,
recalled that "before firing its missiles, the airplane did a low flyover. We
thought it was going to hit Hezbollah posts on the hills [outside the village],
but the plane turned and came back and hit the house."[291]
The homes are isolated on the outskirts of the village, and there are no
neighbors nearby that could have been the target of the attack. `Ali also
denied seeing any Hezbollah fighters around the houses.[292]
It appears that Israeli forces targeted the homes because of the movement of
Musa's taxi in the area.

Killing of Three Civilians, Debbine Marja`youn, July 19

At 7 p.m. on July 19, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired
three missiles into the home of Dawood Khaled, 40, in Debbine Marja`youn,
located on the outskirts of the southern town of Marja`youn. At the time of the attack, Dawood
was on the roof of his house connecting an electrical wire to his neighbor's
generator, while his six children, whose ages were between 14 and one, were
inside the house.[293] The
helicopter missiles killed Dawood Khaled, 40; his daughter `Abla, nine, and his
son Ahmad, age one. His daughters Huda, 13, and Huweida, eight, were gravely
injured and remained hospitalized when Human Rights Watch visited the family
three-and-a-half months after the attack. All of the dead are buried as
civilians.

According to Dawood's widow, Hamida Khaled, who was
uninjured in the attack because she was feeding the family's cows at the time,
the family was not affiliated with Hezbollah or Amal, and there was no
Hezbollah missile firing taking place from near the home, which is located on
the outskirts of the village. She speculates that the Apache helicopter may
have attacked because it spotted her husband on the roof of the house.[294] Dawood's
sister, in a separate interview, also told Human Rights Watch that her brother
was a farmer who was not involved with Hezbollah, and that Hezbollah was active
outside but not inside the village. She told Human Rights Watch that, to her
knowledge, there was no Hezbollah military activity near her brother's home.[295]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
Khaled home. According to the Erlich report, a number of rockets were fired
from houses in Debbine Marja`youn during the war.[296]
However, there is no evidence that the Khaled home was used for that purpose,
or that rockets were fired close to the house.

Killing of One Civilian, `Aita al-Sha`ab, July 20

At about 6 a.m. on July 20, an Israeli Apache helicopter
fired two missiles at a civilian shelter in the village of `Aita al-Sha`ab,
located on the Lebanon-Israel border. According to Nehme Rida, 50, 24 civilians
were living in the shelter at the time of the attack, all of them civilians.
Nehme admitted that his son Muhammad Rida, 24, a Hezbollah fighter who died
during the war, used to visit his relatives every two or three days at the
shelter. He said that his son was not present at the shelter on the day of the
attack.[297]

According to Nehme, he and his brother, Hassan, 58, had
woken up at sunrise to pray and read the Koran, and were sitting just outside
the shelter when the attack occurred:

There was continuous artillery fire, fighter jets were
flying overhead. We heard three helicopters. They went to the end of the town,
and when they came back they attacked. They fired two missiles at us. We were
sitting at the door of the shelter. I was injured, and my brother [Hassan] died
. The missile hit a broken-down car in front of us. There were no fighters in
the area, nothing. The resistance was inside the village,[298]
but not in our area.[299]

Hassan was buried as a civilian, and Hezbollah has not
claimed him as a fighter or a "martyr." The IDF has offered no explanation for
the strike on the Rida home.

Killing of Three Civilians, `Aita al-Sha`ab, July 21

At about 2 p.m., an Israeli airplane fired a missile at the
home of Rida Rida, an elderly villager in his seventies, demolishing the home
and killing all three persons inside. The family had stayed in `Aita al-Sha`ab
because Zahra Rida, Rida's wife who was also in her seventies, was bedridden
and could not easily be moved from the home. The Israeli air strike killed
Rida, his wife Zahra, and their son Ahmad, who was in his forties. According to
a neighbor who was in `Aita al-Sha`ab at the time of the attack but did not
witness the strike, Rida "had no sons in the resistance, and there was no one
else staying at his house."[300] `Aita
al-Sha`ab is the Lebanese border village closest to the site of the July 12
Hezbollah attack and abduction of two IDF soldiers that sparked the war. During
the war, the IDF heavily bombarded `Aita al-Sha`ab, which also saw some of the
most intense urban combat between IDF ground forces and Hezbollah fighters. As
we were unable to locate a surviving witness who was in the vicinity of the
home at the time of the air strike, Human Rights Watch was unable to ascertain
whether Hezbollah forces were fighting in the vicinity of the home. We can only
state with certainty that the three casualties of the attack were buried as
civilians, and that no Hezbollah combatants died alongside them.

Killing of Two Hezbollah Fighters and One Elderly Woman, Zebqine, July 21

On July 21, an Israeli air strike killed the Hezbollah
commander for Zebqine, Ahmad Bzeih, and his cousin `Adnan Bzeih, also a
Hezbollah fighter, while they were checking on 80-year-old Khayriyye Kamil
Bzeih at her home. The elderly woman was also killed in the attack.[301]
Hezbollah combatants are legitimate targets for a military strike, even when
there is no ground combat taking place at the time of the strike, as was the
case in Zebqine. Even if the Hezbollah fighters had a strictly humanitarian
motive in visiting Khariyye Bzeih, they endangered the elderly woman by
co-mingling with her as combatants.

Killing of One Civilian in Nabi Sheet, July 23

At about 5:30 a.m. on July 23, an Israeli warplane fired two
missiles at the home of Dr. Fayez Shukr in Nabi Sheet, in what appears to have
been an attempt to assassinate Shukr. Dr. Fayez Shukr is a leading member of
the Lebanese Ba`ath Party, which is politically allied with Hezbollah, and was
a Minister of State in 1995-1996.[302]
However, there is no evidence that Shukr took part in hostilities between Israel
and Hezbollah, meaning that he was not a legitimate military target. The attack
also destroyed the house next to the Shukr home, and the village hussainiyya
[a Shi`a religious building] was damaged. These two structures were empty at
the time of the attack.

Dr. Shukr was not at home at the time of the attack, having
left his home the night before to return to his office in Beirut. The massive explosion demolished the
home, fatally wounding his father, Shehab Fayez Shukr, 71, who died from his
wounds soon after being pulled from the rubble. The elderly man was not
politically active.[303]

Killing of Two Civilians, Shehin, July 23

At about 11 a.m. on July 23, an Israeli air strike destroyed
the empty summer home of `Ali `Awada in the village of Shehin,
located just south of the Israel-Lebanon border, close to Marwahin. No one was
killed in the `Awada home, but the powerful explosion killed two women sitting
across the road: Munira Ghaith, 57, and her daughter Raja, 29, a local
schoolteacher.[304] Muhammad
Ghaith, 65, Munira's husband, who works as a farmer, was seriously wounded in
the attack.

According to his neighbors, `Ali `Awada, a father of seven,
works as a hotel concierge in Beirut, has no links to Hezbollah, and did not
rent out his summer house to anyone.[305]
According to the same neighbor, "there was no resistance in the neighborhood,
and [the victims] had nothing to do with Hezbollah."[306]
The neighbor also told Human Rights Watch that he never saw any weapons being
transported to `Awada's house.[307] The two
women were buried as civilians.

Killing of Five Civilians in Yaroun, July 23

At 4:15 p.m. on Sunday July 23, an Israeli air strike hit
the home of 75-year-old Farhat Farhat in the village of Yaroun,
located two kilometers north of the Israel-Lebanon border, completely
destroying Farhat's home and five adjacent, empty homes. The air strike killed
all five persons in Farhat's home: Farhat, 75; his wife Badiya Sa`ab, 70; their
daughter-in-law Zainab Khanafer, 43, and Zainab's two children, Zahra, age
five, and Dana, six months old. All of the victims were buried as civilians in
Yaroun.[308]

According to Farhat's neighbor Rashad Ja`far, who was at
home and had 45 civilians sheltering in his home at the time of the attack,
there was no Hezbollah military activity connected with the Farhat house:

The Israelis hit the house out of ignorance. People were
coming in and out of the house, and the Israeli drone must have seen this. This
is the only explanation as to why they hit the home, because Farhat is an old
man. He has eight kids, and they all live overseas . There were no weapons
[and] we didn't see any Katyushas [rockets] being fired from our area.[309]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike on the
Farhat home.

Killing of 11 Civilians in al-Hallousiye, July 24

At about 5:45 a.m. on July 24, Israeli warplanes mounted a
massive strike on a series of homes in the center of al-Hallousiye village,
located some 10 kilometers northeast of the coastal city of Tyre. The warplanes carried out several
bombing raids on the targeted neighborhood, destroying between seven and 10
buildings, including a three-story building, and killing 11 civilians.

According to several survivors interviewed by Human Rights
Watch, hundreds of civilians from al-Hallousiye had fled to the neighborhood in
the belief that it was safer, abandoning their homes on the outskirts of the
villages because of Israeli shelling and bombing raids around the village.
Muhammad Mu'anis, a 36-year-old farmer who lost his 12-year-old son and
nine-year-old daughter in the attack, explained to Human Rights Watch: "We
thought it would be safer there, because the Israelis were attacking the homes
on the outskirts of the village. At the center of the village, we had some 250
people, many of them children-all of the houses were full with people."[310] Although
they considered the center of the village to be safer, not everyone believed
that the center of the village would not be struck. Some of the families even
decided to split up between different houses, according to the village shaikh,
who lost his wife and four children in the attack: "We were expecting the
Israelis to hit the civilians, so we decided to split up the families, so if
the attack occurred in one place, some of the families would survive."[311]

The Israeli air strike first hit a home with 18 civilians
inside, killing two persons and wounding the 16 survivors. When the Israeli
warplanes returned for additional bombing raids minutes later, they demolished
a large three-story building where some 45 civilians had gathered, believing
that the large building would survive even in case of an attack. Nine civilians
were killed when the three-story building was attacked. Out of the 11 dead in
the two raids, five were children, five were women, and the only man was 69
years old. The victims, all buried as civilians, were Maryam Hamid, age 45, the
wife of the village shaikh, and her four children: Zainab, 22, `Ali, 13,
`Abbas, nine, and Khadija, six; Khalthoum Hajali, 86, her daughter Nahiya
Mu'anis, 65, and her granddaughter Ibtisam Hamid, 45; Muhammad Mu'anis, 12, and
his sister `Atika Mu'anis, 9; and Anise Saloum, 69. None of the dead were
claimed as martyrs or fighters by Hezbollah.[312]

The villagers all said that there was no Hezbollah presence
in the attacked neighborhood, located at the center of the village. Muhammad
Mu'anis, who lost two children in the attack, told Human Rights Watch: "There
were no Hezbollah fighters there with us. You can talk to anyone in our
village; there were no fighters with us."[313]
Shaikh Muhammad Hamid, the village spiritual leader who is not affiliated with
Hezbollah and lost his wife and four children in the attack, was equally
adamant: "Not a single resistance [Hezbollah] fighter was in the village; they
were all outside the village . The resistance fires from outside the village,
not from inside the village. There were no fighters in those homes, or around
the homes. Hezbollah and Amal are from the people, but there were no military
centers or any fighters in that area . These are our homes, and we want to
protect them."[314] The
Erlich report, which reviewed intelligence data that radar-tracked rocket
launchers in southern Lebanon,
does not mention rockets fired from within the village of al-Hallousiye, or any
other Hezbollah-related activity.[315]

Killing of Four Hezbollah Fighters and Eight Civilians in Two Separate
Strikes, Haris, July 24

At about 5 p.m., two air strikes 10 minutes apart targeted
two homes located 100 meters apart on the same street in the village of Haris.
The first strike hit a home where four Hezbollah fighters were having a
meeting, killing all of them. The second strike 10 minutes later demolished a
home with only civilians inside, killing all eight members of a family.

The first strike apparently hit a home where four members of
a Hezbollah fighting unit were meeting, killing the commander of the unit, Musa
Zalghut "Bakr," 40, and three fighters in the unit: Shadi Muhammad al-Rez
"Malak," 21, Muhammad Ahmad Rizaq "Hadi," 25, and Muhammad Wafiq Daqiq "Sajid,"
19. All four are buried in Haris as Hezbollah fighters.[316]
There were no civilians inside the home used by the Hezbollah militants.

Ten minutes later, the Israeli warplane carried out a second
strike on a home just 100 meters down the street from the home of the Hezbollah
fighters. The second home attacked was occupied solely by civilians, and eight
civilians were killed: Khalil Jawad, 77; his wife Zainab Jawad, 63; his
daughter Rawa' Jawad, 33; his daughter-in-law Nazmiye Yahya, 50, and her four
children Ahmad, 26, Mahmud, 20, `Akil, 18, and Batul, 16. All of the victims of
the second strike were buried as civilians, and none have been claimed by
Hezbollah as fighters or "martyrs." According to the villagers, there was no
Hezbollah military presence in the second house targeted.[317]
The Hezbollah military presence in the populated neighborhood endangered the
civilians in the area, in violation of the legal duty to take all feasible
precautions to spare civilians the hazards of war. However, the presence of
armed Hezbollah militants in a civilian neighborhood did not absolve Israel
of the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and to target only
the former.

Killing of 15 Civilians and Two Wounded Hezbollah Fighters, `Ainata, July
24

At about noon on July 24, an Israeli air strike demolished a
home at the center of `Ainata, killing 15 civilians and two wounded Hezbollah
fighters sheltering in an internal room.

According to relatives, two wounded Hezbollah fighters fled
from the frontline fighting and came to the house of 34-year-old Fayez Khanafer
in `Ainata. Fayez attempted to provide the wounded fighters with some first aid
and to evacuate them to Saida, but could not find a driver willing to take
them. On the morning of July 24, Fayez moved the wounded fighters and his
entire family to the home of Muhammad `Ali Khanafer in the center of `Ainata. A
few hours after Fayez moved into the home, it was struck by Israeli missiles
and destroyed.

Fifteen civilians died inside the home, as well as the two
wounded fighters. The 15 civilian dead were: Fayez Khanafer, 34, his wife Rima
Samhat, 35, and their four children `Ali, age seven, Abdullah, six, Muhammad, three,
and Dumu`, two; Maryam Fadlallah, 55, and her daughter Zahra, 17; Yemene
Fadlallah, 40, and her son Khodr, age four; Almaza Hassan Fadlallah, 77; Zainab
Khanafer, 78; `Afifa Khanafer, 50; Muhammad `Ali Wehbi, 82, and Kamila
Khanafer, 61. The two Hezbollah fighters who died were Ahmad Jagbir, 19, from
Bar`ashit village, and Muhammad `Atwe, 24, from Chakra village.[318]

Some of the 15 civilians who died in the bombing had links
to Hezbollah, but could not be considered combatants as they did not take an active
part in the hostilities. Fayez Khanafer, while not a member of Hezbollah, had
provided shelter and first aid to the two wounded Hezbollah fighters who came
to his home. Maryam Fadlallah was a Hezbollah activist (her son Amir had been
killed in Bint Jbeil while fighting for Hezbollah). Both Maryam and her
daughter Zahra decided to stay behind in `Ainata in part to bake bread for
Hezbollah fighters, according to their relatives.[319]
None of the civilians could be considered directly participating in the hostilities
as defined by international humanitarian law, and thus could not be targets of
attack.

The Hezbollah fighters, being wounded and evidently not
participating in the fighting, would be considered hors de combat (outside the fighting) and thus not a valid target
of attack. As one laws of war expert has written with respect to the protection
of wounded soldiers on the battlefield, "it is only those who either stop
fighting, or are prevented by their wounds from fighting, who are protected.
Those who carry on fighting despite their wounds are not protected from
attack."[320] The IDF Laws of War in the Battlefield states:
"The wounded are regarded as persons who have stopped taking part in the
fighting and they shall not be harmed."[321]

Even if the IDF believed it could lawfully attack the
wounded combatants (or failed to realize their hors de combat status), it should have taken into account the
likely civilian casualties of attacking them in a civilian home in determining
whether the military gain of attacking them there outweighed the civilian harm.

Killing of Four UN Observers, Khiam, July 25

Around 7:30 p.m. on July 25, an Israeli precision-guided
missile directly hit the clearly marked and well-known observer post of the
UN's Observer Group Lebanon (OGL) near Khiam, demolishing a three-story
building at the base and killing four unarmed United Nations Truce Supervision
Organization (UNTSO) observers. The observers killed were Lt. Col. Du Zhaoyu,
34, from China; Lt. Cdr.
Jarno Mkinen, 20, of Finland;
Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, 43, of Canada;
and Major Hans-Peter Lang, 44, of Austria.

The attack on the post came after 14 Israeli aerial bombs
and artillery shells had fallen nearby, the United Nations Interim Force in
Lebanon (UNIFIL) said.[322] There
was no Hezbollah presence or firing near the UN position during the period of
the attack. According to the United Nations, the UN Force Commander in southern
Lebanon,
General Alain Pelligrini, was in "repeated contact with Israeli Army officers
throughout the afternoon, pressing the need to protect that particular UN
position from firing."[323]

In a statement issued immediately after the attack, UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed shock at the "apparently deliberate
targeting" of the "clearly marked UN observer post." He called it a
"coordinated artillery and aerial attack" and urged Israel to conduct an investigation.[324]

Israel
expressed "deep regret" over the incident and rejected allegations it had
deliberately targeted the UN post.[325]
Prime Minister Olmert promised to conduct a thorough investigation. "It is
inconceivable for the UN to define an error as an apparently deliberate
action," he said.[326]
Secretary-General Annan accepted the Israeli government's assurance that the
attack was not deliberate but regretted that Israel would not allow the UN to
participate in the investigation.[327]
After a UN Board of Inquiry conducted its own limited investigation, a terse
statement issued by the Secretary-General noted the lack of cooperation
received from the IDF: "The Board did not have access to operational or
tactical level IDF commanders involved in the incident, and was, therefore,
unable to determine why the attacks on the UN position were not halted, despite
repeated demarches to the Israeli authorities from UN personnel, both in the
field and at Headquarters."[328]

This was the first deadly attack on UN observers in southern
Lebanon
during the 2006 conflict, but Israeli forces had struck at or near other
clearly marked UN positions since the beginning of the fighting. Hezbollah had
regularly (and, in all likelihood, unlawfully) fired at Israeli targets from
near UN positions, but in many cases (including the deadly Khiam attack)
Israeli fire struck UN posts in the absence of any Hezbollah presence.

On July 24, four Ghanaian UNIFIL observers were lightly
injured when an Israeli tank shell fell inside their UN post at Rmeish, one of
six incidents of IDF fire on or close to UN positions recorded that day (UNIFIL
did not report a Hezbollah presence near the Rmeish UN post that day).[329] On July
16, UNIFIL recorded 17 instances of IDF fire on UN observer posts, including
two direct hits inside UNIFIL observer posts. One IDF tank shell seriously
wounded an Indian peacekeeper inside a UN post.[330]
On July 17, a UNIFIL medical team came under IDF fire while trying to retrieve
the bodies of 16 civilians killed by an Israeli strike on the road between
al-Biyada and Sham`a as they fled the village of Marwahin (see below).[331] Even if
Hezbollah was in the area of the UN during these attacks, the IDF apparently
did not take adequate care to avoid harm to UN personnel and installations.

The magnitude of IDF attacks that hit close to UN positions
in southern Lebanon
is well documented in UNIFIL's own daily reports. UNIFIL's summary of attacks
on its positions on July 19, for example, gives a troubling overview of just
how often Israeli shells landed on their positions, as well as the actions of
Hezbollah fighters that endangered UNIFIL personnel:

There were 31 incidents of firing close to UN positions
during the past 24 hours, with three positions suffering direct hits from the
Israeli side. 10 artillery shells impacted inside the UN position of the
Ghanaian battalion on the coast of Ras Naqoura,
causing extensive damage. Four artillery shells impacted inside the patrol base
of the Observer Group Lebanon in the Marun el Ras area, including three direct
impacts on the building which caused extensive damage and cut electricity and
communications connections. At the time of the shelling, there were 36
civilians inside the position, most of whom were women and children from the village of Marun el Ras. There were no casualties.
One artillery shell impacted inside the UNIFIL Headquarters compound in
Naqoura, causing extensive damage and danger to the UNIFIL hospital where
doctors were operating at the time. Splinters of artillery shells also damaged
the boundary wall of the Naqoura camp. Extensive shelling damage was reported
in the Ghanaian battalion position south of Alma Ash Shab. Hezbollah firing was
also reported from the immediate vicinity of UN positions in the Naqoura and
Marun el Ras areas at the time of the incidents.[332]

Peacekeeping forces are not parties to a conflict, even if
they are usually professional soldiers. As long as they do not take part in
hostilities, they are entitled to the same protection from attack afforded to
civilians.[333] Thus
deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on peacekeepers are a violation of
international humanitarian law. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court has explicitly included intentionally directing attacks on peacekeeping
personnel as a war crime.[334]

Killing of Two Civilians, Kafra, July 26

At about 4 p.m. on July 26, Israeli warplanes hit several
neighboring homes in Kafra, located 10 kilometers southeast of the coastal town
of Tyre. Ayyad
Merhi, 48, a van driver who survived the attack, explained that he had stayed
in the village to look after his elderly parents, since his mother was
bedridden and could not be moved, and his father refused to leave his native
village. He told Human Rights Watch how the attack occurred:

On that Wednesday, things had been quiet. We were sitting
around in safety. The first hit that day came on the [empty] house of Ahmad and
`Ali Hijazi, who are our neighbors. Then, they attacked the house of our
neighbor, Muhammad Musa `Ez al-Din. It was around 4 p.m. I went to see my van;
a tree had fallen on it. Seven or eight minutes later, they attacked our house
from upstairs. There was smoke. I went outside to get some air. The second hit
was in the middle of the house. I had time to jump into the garden in front of
the house. They also hit my brother's house, which is next to ours. I sat under
a fig tree until things got quieter. I called out for my parents, but there was
no answer.[335]

The attack killed his father Muhammad Merhi, 78, and his
mother Latifah Abu Zayd, 72. Both are buried as civilians in Kafra.[336]

According to Ayyad Mustafa, there were no Hezbollah military
operations nearby: "Hezbollah was not firing from close to the house; their
rockets were coming from the valleys."[337]
The other four destroyed homes were all empty, as the families had fled to Beirut. The attack was the
first IDF strike on the village
of Kafra.

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike. According
to a report compiled by the IDF-affiliated Intelligence and TerrorismInformationCenter, Hezbollah fired
17 rockets from within houses in Kafra during the war.[338]
However, there is no evidence that the firing came from near the Merhi home or
that Hezbollah fired rockets from the village on July 26.

Killing of Six Civilians, Hadatha, July 27

At 3:30 p.m. on July 27, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at
an abandoned women's Shi`a religious center (a hussainiyya) in Hadatha, located some 15 kilometers southeast of
the coastal city of Tyre.
According to the mukhtar of the
village, the abandoned religious center was not affiliated with Hezbollah.
After hitting the center, the planes returned and demolished an adjacent
three-story home. Hajj `Abd al-Jalil Nasir, 73, the former mukhtar of the village who was at his home just 50 meters away,
recalled the attack to Human Rights Watch:

We felt like an earthquake had happened. Every person who
stayed in my house thought we had been targeted ourselves. We knew there were
people in that house because all of the villagers were sheltering in the houses
with more than two stories [for safety.]

When the bombing calmed down, we went to see what happened.
We saw the house and the hussainiyya completely destroyed. The dead
remained under the rubble until the end of the war.[339]

Those killed in the attack were Mustafa Nasir, 80; his
sister Naimeh, 60, and her husband Hussain Sabra, 58; Yusif Mansur, 73, and his
wife Zainab Sabra, 75, and their daughter Samia Mansur 50. All were buried as
civilians in Hadatha.[340]

The former mukhtar
of Hadatha, Hajj `Abd al-Jalil Nasir, who remained in his village until the
48-hour ceasefire and is not associated with Hezbollah, told Human Rights Watch
that Hezbollah fighters had been prohibited from entering his village and had
fought from existing positions in the surrounding valleys:

At the time I was present in the village, the resistance
was not inside the village. The villagers do not allow the resistance to shoot
from inside the village; they had to go outside the village. The fighters made
a lot of caves where they could hide [around the village]. They have a Land
Rover with 8-12 missile launchers mounted on it, and their caves are at least
two meters deep. When they launch, they move the vehicle out and back in. So
the missile launcher stays in the field. It is prohibited to bring such weapons
into the village. The villagers do not allow it because it would bring a
catastrophe on them.[341]

The Erlich Report, which radar-tracked rocket launchers in
southern Lebanon, does not
mention any rockets fired from within the village of Hadatha.[342]

Killing of Six Civilians, al-Numeiriyya, July 29

At about 2:30 p.m. on July 29, `Adnan Harake, age 43, a
20-year veteran of the Lebanese Civil Defense, briefly left his home in
al-Numeiriyya to go buy bread and other food supplies in the center of the
village. When he returned 30 minutes later, he found that Israeli warplanes had
reduced his home to rubble, killing his second wife and four children as well
as a neighbor. "I left a nice house and my family," Harake told Human Rights
Watch, "and a few minutes later I returned to a pile of rubble."

Six people were killed in the attack: Harake's second wife
Sawsan Mehdi, 30; and his children Ranim, 17; `Ali, 13; Rida, 11; and Hadi, age
eight; as well as his neighbor Naif Abdullah Bdeir, 56. All were buried in
al-Numeiriyya village as civilians, and none were claimed by Hezbollah as
fighters or "martyrs."

Al-Numeiriyya is a small village located about half-way
between the coastal cities of Tyre and Saida and
the inland city of Nabatiye,
too far away from the Israeli border to serve as a launching site for
short-range rockets. The house was located along the main road out of
al-Numeriyya towards Dweir, and had a small agricultural supplies shop on the
bottom floor; the apartment of Naif Abdullah Bdeir, a real estate agent without
Hezbollah affiliation, on the first floor; and Harake's apartment on the second
floor. According to Harake, a neighboring building was empty and unused at the
time of the attack. According to Harake, there was no Hezbollah presence,
rockets, or weapons nearby: "We didn't have a missile launcher, nothing of the
sort, no [Hezbollah] flags, nothing. It was just a normal house. Me and my neighbor,
we had nothing to do with Hezbollah . The second building was empty. They may
have seen people moving; maybe that is why the attacked. There were no trucks
parked nearby."[343]

Killing of 27 Civilians, Qana, July 30

Around 1 a.m. on July 30, Israeli warplanes fired missiles
at the village of
Qana. Among the homes
struck was a three-story building in which 63 members of two extended families
had sought shelter. The home collapsed and killed 27 people, including 16
children.

Initial reports after the attack put the death toll at 54,
which was based on the register of 63 persons who had sought shelter in the
building that was struck, and the rescue teams' ability to locate only nine
survivors. Relying on multiple interviews with rescuers and village officials
as well as media accounts, Human Rights Watch issued a press release on July 30
that also put the death toll at "at least 54 civilians." But a Human Rights
Watch inspection of the Qana site and our interviews conducted at the Tyre hospital on August 1
and 2 established that the actual death toll of the attack was lower. Human
Rights Watch learned after a visit to Qana that at least 22 people escaped the
basement; 27 are confirmed dead (a 28th person from Qana died at the
hospital around the same time, but was not in the building that was attacked).
No more bodies were recovered since the immediate recovery effort. There is no
indication that the rescuers and village officials intentionally attempted to
mislead the media and Human Rights Watch researchers by intentionally giving
inflated death tolls; rather, an innocent misinterpretation of the register of
persons in the building and a lack of due diligence in checking the death count
by the media and Human Rights Watch's researchers are responsible for the
error.

Two families had sought shelter in the house because it was
one of the larger buildings in the area and had a reinforced basement,
according to the deputy mayor of the town, Dr. `Issam Matuni.[344]

According to Muhammad Mahmud Shalhoub, a 61-year-old farmer
who was in the basement during the attack, 63 members of the Shalhoub and
Hashim families went to hide in three ground-floor rooms of the three-story
building when the first missile struck the village around 6 p.m. on July 29. He
explained how, around 1 a.m. on July 30, after heavy bombing in the village, an
Israeli missile hit the ground floor of the home:

It felt like someone lifted the house. The ground floor of
the house is 2.5 meters high. When the first strike hit, it hit below us and
the whole house lifted, the rocket hit under the house. I was sitting by the
door. It got very dusty and smoky. We were all in shock. I was not injured and
found myself [thrown] outside. There was a lot of screaming inside. When I
tried to go back in, I couldn't see because of the smoke. I started pushing
people out, whomever I could find.

Five minutes later, another air strike came and hit the
other side of the building, behind us. After the second strike, we could barely
breathe and we couldn't see anything. There were three rooms in the house where
people were hiding [on the ground floor]. After the first strike, a lot of
earth was pushed up into the rooms. We only managed to find some people [alive]
in the first room.[345]

Shalhoub told Human Rights Watch that there were no
Hezbollah fighters present in or near the home when the attack took place.
Israeli bombs had cut all four roads into Qana, he said, which would have made
it difficult if not impossible for Hezbollah to move rocket launchers into the
village. "If they [the IDF] really saw the rocket launchers, where did it go?"
Shalhoub said. "We showed Israel
our dead; why don't the Israelis show us the rocket launchers?"

Ghazi `Aydaji, another Qana villager who rushed to the house
when it was hit at 1 a.m., gave an account consistent with Shalhoub's. He and
others removed a number of survivors from the building after the first strike,
he said, but they could remove no one else after the second strike hit five
minutes later. "If Hezbollah was firing near the house, would a family of over
50 people just sit there?" he asked.[346]

Human Rights Watch researchers visited Qana on July 31, the
day after the attack, and did not find any destroyed military equipment in or
near the home. None of the dozens of international journalists, rescue workers,
and international observers who visited Qana on July 30 and 31 reported seeing
any evidence of a Hezbollah military presence in or around the home around the
time that it was hit. Rescue workers recovered no bodies of apparent Hezbollah
fighters from in or near the building.

After the incident, Israeli officials expressed regret over
the civilian deaths and said Israel
would conduct an investigation. Various officials said that Hezbollah fighters
were to blame for firing rockets near the building, and that the IDF had warned
civilians to leave.[347] Various
Israeli spokespersons gave contradictory statements about the attack: one
spokesperson stated that the bombs had missed a Hezbollah target 300 meters
away, while another said that the house had been the target because Hezbollah
fighters had used the house. Several officials also stated that the second
explosion had taken place only hours later, in the early morning hours, and
suggested that a Hezbollah rocket stored inside may have caused that explosion.
All of these contradictory statements were ultimately not repeated when Israel
released the findings of its investigation.

IDF spokesperson Jacob Dallal blamed Hezbollah for the
civilian deaths, stating that "Hezbollah used the village of Qana
as a base to launch rockets and it bears responsibility that this area is a
combat zone," but not offering any evidence linking the specific building
struck to Hezbollah rocket fire.[348]
An unnamed senior Israeli air commander said the IDF had hit the building with
a precision-guided bomb on the assumption that it was sheltering Hezbollah
crews that had fired missiles at northern Israel, and denied that the IDF had
targeted civilians: "Had we known there were that many civilians inside, we certainly
would not have attacked [the house]."[349]
When asked how the military knew about the rockets but not the presence of
civilians in the building, the commander said the IDF was "capable of detecting
missile launches because they are very dynamic," while the civilians were not
seen because they had been hiding in the building for some days.[350] His
statement is contrary to the account of Muhammad Mahmud Shalhoub, above, who
said the families went into the house to hide when the aerial attack began
around 6 p.m. on July 29, not days before the attack. The IDF has never
released any evidence to support the Israeli air commander's contention that
Hezbollah had fired rockets from the area. Nor does the alleged fact of
Hezbollah's use of "the village
of Qana as a base to
launch rockets" justify a direct attack twice on a civilian building.

On August 1, one of Israel's top military
correspondents wrote in Haaretz that,
while the Israeli Air Force investigation into the incident was ongoing,
"questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident." He
elaborated that the IDF changed its original story and that "it now appears
that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the
building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time."[351]

A mass burial of 30 bodies took place in Qana on August 18.
The burial involved all 27 victims of the Qana bombing, as well as three
Hezbollah fighters who had been killed outside Qana in fighting unrelated to
the bombing (one of the three fighters was buried in a graveyard in a different
neighborhood of Qana).[352] Only one
of the 27 Qana victims-17-year-old `Ali Ahmad Mahmud Shalhoub-was buried with a
Hezbollah flag draped over his coffin, a common practice for Hezbollah
symphatizers, regardless of whether they are simple supporters, military
fighters, or non-military members. According to his relatives, he was a
Hezbollah sympathizer, not a Hezbollah fighter, and his grave stone does not
identify him as a military "martyr."[353]

Killing of Three Civilians, al-Luweizeh, August 1

At about 4 p.m. on August 1, Israeli warplanes dropped
leaflets over the village of al-Luweizeh, located in a mountainous region about
10 kilometers north of Nabatiyeh, stating that they were about to launch an air
raid on the village and ordering the villagers to immediately leave their homes
and go north.[354] While
some villagers heeded the warnings, others remained in their homes, reassured
by the fact that Israel
had declared a 48-hour ceasefire following the Qana incident.

At about 4:50 p.m., 36-year-old Rahab Hashim left her home
next to the town's square, and got into her car to go collect her husband for a
late lunch. As she drove away, an Israeli missile struck the home she had just
left, demolishing the home and knocking her unconscious. A girl and two women
inside the home were killed: Rahab's 12-year-old daughter Hanadi; Rahab's
sister-in-law Ilham, 38; and Rashida Muqalid, 60, who was bedridden. All three
dead were buried as civilians. Three young boys were seriously wounded in the
attack, including a 16-year-old who remained in a coma for twelve days.

According to the villagers, the family had no connections to
Hezbollah. The owner of the house, who lost his daughter in the attack, works
for the Lebanese Red Cross. A neighbor speculated:

I think the house was hit because people were moving
around. The sons of the old woman left just before the attack, but they were
not resistance fighters . The people in that house were not pro-Hezbollah. No
trucks were parked there, just the pickup of her son who works for the Red
Cross. His daughter is one of the dead. He had come to fix the water.[355]

While humanitarian law requires effective advance warning to
the civilian population prior to an attack where circumstances permit, those
warnings do not in any way relieve the warring party from its obligations at
all times to distinguish between combatants and civilians and to take all
feasible precautions to protect civilians from harm. Issuing warnings in no way
entitled the Israeli military to treat those civilians who remained in
al-Luweizeh as legitimate military targets or to ignore their presence for
reasons of distinction and proportionality.

Killing of Two Hezbollah Fighters, OneHospital Nurse, Two Armed Communist
Party Members and 11 Civilians, Jamaliyeh and Baalbek, August 1

Starting at about 9:30 p.m. on August 1, hundreds of Israeli
commando troops backed by Apache helicopters and war planes launched a major
raid on the Hezbollah-alignedDaral-HikmaHospital in Jamaliyeh, a village on
the outskirts of the city of Baalbek in the
Beka` Valley, as well as a separate raid inside Baalbek itself.

According to the IDF, "the target of the raid was a hospital
known to be used by the Hezbollah terror organization as one of its
headquarters. Hezbollah weapons, computers, computer storage media, and a large
amount of vital intelligence materials were seized. Ten terrorists were killed
during the operation, and five others were captured by Israeli forces. There
were no IDF or civilian casualties."[356]
In fact, most of those killed were civilians, including a family of six Syrian
Kurdish farm workers, and the captured "terrorists" turned out to be civilians
as well. Instead of a "precise surgical raid" claimed by the IDF, the operation
appears to have been based on questionable intelligence and had a
disproportionate impact on civilians.

The raid started with intensive bombardment of the roads
around the Dar al-Hikma hospital between 9:30 and 10:15 p.m., cutting off all
the access roads to the hospital. The Israeli commandos were then dropped by
helicopters and made their way on foot to the hospital. According to
the director of the Dar al-Hikma hospital, the IDF commandos shot dead a nurse
at the hospital, Atif Amhaz, as he tried to flee and also wounded two armed
security guards. As the commandos took control of the hospital, Hezbollah
militants tried to ambush them. Two Hezbollah militants were killed during the
ensuing firefight. An Israeli drone hit one with a missile as he approached the
hospital, and Israeli small arms fire killed a second after he fired at the
Israeli troops. Human Rights Watch saw Hezbollah "martyr" posters for only the
nurse and the two Hezbollah militants around Jamaliyeh, suggesting that they
were the only three Hezbollah-affiliated persons to die in the commando raid.
Others killed, as noted below, were a group of armed men, who were valid
military targets, and civilians in their vicinity. Our research does not
support the IDF claim that "ten terrorists" were killed.[357]

The Israeli commandos searched every room in the hospital,
confiscating the hospital files and computer disks, and also reportedly
discovered AK-47 rifles and other unspecified small arms at the hospital. They
did not take any prisoners. The hospital director freely admitted that his
hospital had links to Hezbollah and speculated that the IDF may have carried
out the raid because it believed the two kidnapped IDF soldiers were being kept
at the hospital, or that the hospital was treating important wounded Hezbollah commanders
or officials.[358]

International humanitarian law provides that parties to a
conflict must protect and respect medical units, such as military and civilian
hospitals, in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are used
for military purposes outside of their humanitarian function that is "harmful
to the enemy."[359] The
presence of armed guards or small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded
would not be a basis for a hospital losing its protection; using a hospital to
store ammunition or shelter able-bodied combatants would be such a basis. Some
states specifically prohibit using medical units for military purposes or
consider the improper military use of privileged buildings, such as hospitals,
to be a war crime.[360] The
protection due hospitals ceases, however, only after due warning and a
reasonable time limit, and that warning has gone unheeded.[361]
Further investigation is needed before conclusions can be reached with respect
to this incident.

While the Israeli operation was underway in Jamaliyeh,
nearly 100 residents fled their homes on the main road nearby and gathered at
the home of Mukhtar Hussain Jamal
al-Din, a staunch supporter of the Lebanese Communist Party. Almost all of
those inside the home were women and children, and the men gathered outside
under trees to alleviate some of the crowding inside. According to the mukhtar, two of the men outside the
home, 18-year-old Maxim Jamal al-Din, the son of the mukhtar, and 58-year-old `Awad Jamal al-Din, were armed with
AK-47s.[362]

Around 2:00 a.m., Israeli helicopters appear to have spotted
the large group of men sheltering under the trees outside the mukhtar's
home, as it fired six Hellfire missiles at them. The missiles killed all three
of the Lebanese Communist Party members (Maxim Jamal al-Din, `Awad Jamal
al-Din, who were both armed, and Hassan Jamal al-Din, who was unarmed) as well
as three unarmed men and a boy: Naji Jamal al-Din, 45, a furniture maker; his
son Muhammad Najdi Jamal al-Din, 12; Malik Jamal al-Din, 22, a painter; and Hussain
al-Mekdad, 42, a public transport worker.[363]
Several others, including a 76-year-old man and the mukhtar's 19-year-old daughter, were injured in the attack. The
three dead members of the Lebanese Communist Party were claimed as "martyrs" by
the party.

The mukhtar and
other relatives argued to Human Rights Watch that the Israeli helicopters had
unlawfully attacked the armed men at the house because the armed men had not
engaged the Israeli commandos or fired at the helicopters, and had "merely"
been prepared to confront the Israeli soldiers if they entered the neighborhood
of the home. However, such an interpretation misunderstands the laws of war:
the two armed men were combatants under the laws of war, and the IDF could
lawfully fire upon. The two combatants endangered the lives of the civilians by
mixing with them, as the combatants could be legitimately attacked by the IDF.
The four unarmed bystanders killed in the attack put themselves at risk by
mixing with combatants during an Israeli military operation, and must be
considered collateral casualties to a legitimate Israeli military strike.

Around 3:30 a.m., Israeli helicopters fired a missile at a
Syrian Kurdish farmer's family that was attempting to flee its tent for the
safety of a nearby home owned by a Lebanese man. The farmers had come to Lebanon
to work as seasonal agricultural laborers and resided in tents in a field
approximately one kilometer away from the Jamal al-Din house. According to the
relatives of the family, five families of farmers had been sheltering in fear
in their tents since the commando raid began shortly after 9:00 p.m., hearing
constant explosions and Israeli aircraft and helicopters in the air. "The
children were crying, and everyone was afraid," Mahmud Sukar, 37, recalled to
Human Rights Watch, "at around midnight, Talal's family came outside. His wife
was crying, and the children were afraid. They wanted to leave but didn't know
where to go."[364]

At 3:30 a.m., Talal Chibli decided it was unsafe
to remain in the tents and ran with his family towards the relative safety of a
nearby Lebanese home. Just 30 meters from his home, an Israeli Apache
helicopter fired a missile at the family. Six members of the family were
killed: Talal Chibli, 40 (who died seven hours later); his wife Maha Sha`ban,
32; and their children Muhannad, 13, Muayyad, 12 (who died at 7:30 a.m. from
his wounds), Asma', age six, and Muhammad, four. Three children survived with
grave wounds: Muthana, age nine (who remained hospitalized one month after the
attack when Human Rights Watch visited the scene of the incident), Mus`ab, age
five, and Batul, eight months.

The Syrian farmworkers had no links to Hezbollah and were
not participating in the hostilities. "There was no resistance [Hezbollah]
here; no one fired at the Israelis when they landed," Isma`il al-Hammud, a
relative of those killed, recalled. "Our tents were shaking from the
explosions. The Israelis would fire at anything that moved. At least three dogs
died around here [from the gunfire]."[365]
"We have nothing to do with resistance [Hezbollah]; we are Syrian workers," Mahmud
Sukar, another relative, told Human Rights Watch, "we don't know anything about
these activities."[366]

At the same time as the commando raid on Dar al-Hikma
hospital, Israeli commandos also raided al-`Usaira, a neighborhood in Baalbek, located about
five kilometers away (in its reports on the raids, the IDF designated the two
raids as a single operation). At around 10:15 p.m., Israeli warplanes began
bombing homes in al-`Usaira, demolishing many homes. At around 11:45 p.m.,
about 50 to 60 Israeli commandos entered a home with 12 civilians inside.

The object of the raid remains unclear. However, it appears
that the Israeli commandos were looking for someone named Hassan Nasrallah, the
same name as the secretary-general of Hezbollah. But the Hassan Nasrallah they
found was a 54-year-old local shopkeeper who was not related to the leader of
Hezbollah. As soon as they entered the home, they asked the shopkeeper in
broken Arabic, "Are you Hassan Nasrallah?"[367]
The Israeli commandos took Hassan Nasrallah and the five other men in the
house, including his 14-year-old son. The men were taken up the mountain behind
Baalbek, where
they saw hundreds of additional commandos and waiting Israeli helicopters.

During the transfer, Israeli soldiers allegedly threatened
and beat several of the detained men with rifle butts. Muhammad Nasrallah, the
14-year-old, told Human Rights Watch that an Israeli officer told him: "If you
tell me who is in the resistance, I will let you go to your mother." He replied
that they were all civilians. The officer then threatened the boy: "You see
your father here? If you don't tell me who is in the resistance, I will kill
him and you."[368] In a
separate interview with Human Rights Watch, Hassan Nasrallah also said that the
soldiers had threatened his son.[369]
They then told him to find his own way back home. He spent several hours
walking back while Israeli drones and warplanes bombarded the neighborhood.

Israeli soldiers allegedly repeatedly beat Bilal Nasrallah,
Hassan's 31-year-old son, with rifle butts as they walked up the mountain.
Muhammad Shukr, their 46-year-old neighbor, had his head smashed into a wall
while being handcuffed and was bleeding profusely.[370]
The soldiers then loaded the men on the helicopters and took them to an
undisclosed detention center in Israel.

At the Israeli prison, Israeli officials repeatedly
interrogated the men and accused them of being Hezbollah members. They
repeatedly accused Hassan Deeb Nasrallah's son, Bilal Nasrallah, of being the
son of the Hezbollah Secretary-General, even though his father was with him.
Bilal recalled his first interrogation to Human Rights Watch:

I spent 18 hours in the investigation room alone; it was a
very difficult interrogation. They did provide me with food and water. They
focused on whether I was the son of [Hezbollah leader] Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.
Then, they focused on whether I was an official in Hezbollah. I am not
Hezbollah. I am busy with my work and my house, and don't even attend their
festivals.[371]

According to one of the detained men, when he asked the
interrogators what would happen to them, the interrogators told the men they
would keep them in detention in order to exchange them for the captured Israeli
soldiers.[372] Israeli
interrogators questioned all of the men multiple times, but apparently had no
information implicating the men in Hezbollah activities, and never presented
any evidence during the interrogations.

On August 16, Israeli human rights lawyer Leah Tzemel of the
Public Committee Against Torture gained access to the detained men, retained
them as her clients, and brought a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court to
obtain their release. On August 21, rather than answering the Supreme Court
application, Israel
released the five men without publicity. They took the men to the
Israel-Lebanon border and handed them over to the International Committee of
the Red Cross, who passed them on to UNIFIL, who in turn transferred the men to
Lebanese military intelligence.

Dan Halutz, the IDF's Chief of Staff, appeared less than
certain about the results of the commando raid when he issued a statement
afterwards: "The end result of this undertaking is still unclear to us, because
we collected a lot of materials and we still need to analyze them, to decipher
them, and to understand what we brought with us . But I have no doubt that we
will find further benefits of this operation, because part of them are still
hidden from view since we haven't had time to verify the quality of the items
we brought."[373]
Following the release of the five men, an unnamed Israeli official admitted to
the New York Times that they had been
wrong: "We captured five people we thought were involved with Hezbollah. Under
questioning, it turned out we were wrong. So we turned them over to the UN."[374]

Killing of Four Fighters and Three Civilians, al-Jibbain, August 3

On August 3 or 4, an Israeli helicopter strike killed three
Hezbollah fighters: Hassan Sami Musalamani, `Ali Sami Musalamani, and Hassan
Ahmad `Akil, and one Amal fighter, `Abbas Ahmad `Akil, in an uninhabited valley
some 900 meters from the nearest homes of the village of al-Jibbain, located
close to the Israeli border. Hezbollah was apparently using the location to
fire rockets at Israel.
Human Rights Watch researchers tried to visit the area where the four militants
died, but a municipal official, who consulted with a Hezbollah commander on his
mobile phone, prevented them from doing so until the site could be, in the
words of the municipal official, "cleaned up."[375]

A tobacco farmer who was present in the neighborhood during
the war told Human Rights Watch about Hezbollah fighters and rocket positions
around his village. He explained that Hezbollah fighters moved through his
village on occasion during the war, but that he had not seen them fire rockets
from within the village:

There is no Hezbollah position inside the village; they
just move around. They fire their rockets from outside and the edges of the
village. Then Israel
fires back. When Hezbollah fires a rocket, Israel fires back at the same
village.[376]

Around the same time as this attack, Israeli helicopters
also attacked civilian homes on the outskirts of the village closest to the
valley from where rockets were fired. An Israeli Apache helicopter fired at
least three Hellfire missiles at the home of 70-year-old Qassim Mahmud `Akil,
killing him, his 81-year-old wife Khadija Ghanem, and their 42-year-old
daughter, Maryam `Akil.[377]
According to a cousin, who had left the house just an hour before the attack,
there was no Hezbollah presence in the area of Qassim's house, only in the
uninhabited valley outside the village.[378]

At 2:00 p.m. on Friday, August 4, Israeli warplanes attacked
a warehouse and the residence of a janitor on the al-Wifaq farm in al-Qa`,
located in the no-man's zone along the Lebanese and Syrian border. The missiles
struck the warehouse as Syrian farmworkers were eating their lunch inside,
killing 25. At the time of the attack, the farm was busy harvesting apricots,
and a refrigerated truck had left the property at about 11:30 a.m. with a load
of apricots. An Israeli drone had been flying over the farm as farm workers
loaded the refrigerated truck, according to the farm manager.[379]

IDF spokesperson, Jacob Dallal, stated after the attack that
they based the decision to target the building on the movement of the
refrigerated truck: "The air force spotted a truck that was suspected to have
been loaded with weapons cross from Syria
into Lebanon
on a route that is routinely used to transport weapons. The truck entered a
building and remained inside for an hour, then left and returned to Syria."
Dallal explained that they targeted the building after the departure of the
truck.[381]

There is no indication that the warehouse was ever used for
any purpose other than farming. The owners of the farm are a Sunni Muslim and a
Maronite Christian with no links to Hezbollah. Television crews were present
during the recovery effort after the attack and filmed no weapons or missiles
being removed from the destroyed warehouse, only the bodies of farmworkers.
"There was nothing to attack here," the farm manager told Human Rights Watch,
"no Hezbollah, and no weapons."[382] The
police chief of al-Qa`, a Maronite Christian, also said that there had been no
Hezbollah presence or weapons on the farm, and stated that it would have been
impossible for Hezbollah to move weapons through the official Lebanese border
post nearby.[383]

Killing of Three Civilians, Taibe, August 5

At approximately 6 p.m. on August 5, an Israeli warplane
fired a missile at the home of Hani Abdo Marmar in the village of Taibe.
Marmar was a farmer and owned cows. The strike killed Marmar, 48, his wife
Nahiya Karim, 36, and their daughter Aya, age two. All three were buried as
civilians in Taibe. Hezbollah claimed none as fighters or martyrs.[384]

According to another daughter who had left the village on
July 23, "My father decided to stay as he had cows here and he had to feed
them. My stepmother stayed with him. No one knew what was going to happen."[385] The mukhtar of the village, Hussain Kazem,
told Human Rights Watch that Marmar was a civilian who had stayed behind to
take care of his cows.[386] Human
Rights Watch was unable to find witnesses to verify whether Hezbollah
combatants were in the vicinity or stored weapons nearby. The IDF has offered
no explanation for the strike on the building and home.

Killing of Five Civilians, Insar, August 7

At 12:30 a.m. on August 7, an Israeli warplane fired a
missile into the home of 50-year-old Ibrahim Zain Assi in the village of Insar,
located approximately halfway between the coastal cities of Tyre and Saida. According to the mukhtar of the town, Zakaria Safawi,
Insar had been relatively quiet during the war, and the attack took the town by
surprise: "We considered the town to be calm, because there was no resistance
based here. Some people had left, but many had stayed."[387]

The strike killed Ibrahim Zain Assi, 50, a notary; his
daughters Ghina, 24, who worked at the Beirut
airport, and Maya, 21, a law student at the LebaneseUniversity
in Saida; Ibrahim's sister-in-law, Hasna Qubeisi, 40; and his neighbor Marwan
`Ali Assi, 37, a school bus driver. All of the dead were buried as civilians in
Insar, and none was claimed by Hezbollah or other militant parties as a fighter
or "martyr."[388]
According to his family and the mukhtar
of the village, the dead had no relationship to Hezbollah.

The sister and father of Ibrahim believe the house was hit
because Ibrahim had received many visitors on the night of the attack:
relatives, neighbors, and friends who had come over to talk, drink tea, and
smoke the traditional sheesha
waterpipes. Some of the visitors had left just shortly before the attack, and
Ibrahim had been talking to his neighbor Marwan who was just leaving at the
time of the attack.[389]

Killing of Seven Civilians, al-Ghassaniyeh, August 7

At about 2:25 a.m. on August 7, an Israeli warplane fired
two missiles at a two-story building in al-Ghassaniyeh, located about half way
between the coastal cities of Tyre
and Saida. The strike killed seven persons: Abdullah Khalil Tohme, 58; his wife
Fatima Muhammad Mukhaddar, 55; and their son Muhammad, 25; their neighbors Nur
Hassan Salih, 19, Muhammad Qasim Hamud, 31, and Sulaiman Qasim Hammud, 25; and Hussain
Haidar `Amer, 17, who was visiting from the village of Saksakiyye.[390]

Although their relatives and villagers told Human Rights
Watch that all seven of the men were civilians, Muhammad Qasim Hammud and his
brother Sulaiman are buried with the inscription "Martyrs of the Resistance
Legions of Amal," indicating they were fighters for Amal. Amal "martyr" posters
depicting the two men with automatic weapons were also visible in the town.

-

Relatives mourn at the graves of six
villagers killed by an Israeli airstrike in al-Ghassaniyeh on August 7,
2006.A seventh victim was buried in his
home village.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

When asked about the identification of the men as fighters,
several villagers and relatives of the men insisted that all the dead were
civilians, and that the two men were buried with Amal honors and issued martyr
posters because they were political supporters of Amal, but not active
fighters. (At the same time, the witness identified Ahmad Nimr Danaf, another
villager killed in the war, as an Amal fighter). One of the neighbors told
Human Rights Watch: "Because the family is pro-Amal, the party decided to give
them an Amal funeral and put up "martyr" posters, but those pictures [depicting
the men with weapons] are computer generated."[391]

This adamant denial by relatives and other villagers that
the men were fighters is unusual. In other cases where fighters died in the
war, families proudly affirmed their status, considering it a family honor. The
denials in this case suggest that Amal, because of its more limited role in the
Israel-Hezbollah war, decided to claim non-combatants members as "martyrs," as
this would assert its militancy and inflate its role in the conflict.

One of the neighbors told Human Rights Watch that "there was
no military presence around the house."[392]

Killing of 16 Civilians, al-Ghaziyeh, August 7

On August 7 and 8, Israeli warplanes bombed a number of
targets in al-Ghaziyeh, a large town just south of the coastal city of Saida,
killing a total of 26 persons, all of them civilians (one person killed was a
Hezbollah member, but not a fighter). It appears that many of the targets were
associated with a national-level Hezbollah leader from the town, Amin Muhammad Khalifa.[393] It is
not clear whether Khalifa was active in Hezbollah's military or civilian
structures. Among the targets hit was his neighbor's house and the homes and
shops of his brothers. Amin Khalifa was not in al-Ghaziyeh during the war,
including at the time the attacks that took place; the air strikes killed only
civilians.

The attacks on al-Ghaziyeh shocked many of the town's
residents because they had considered their town to be safe, uninvolved in the
Israel-Hezbollah fighting. In fact, many displaced persons from southern Lebanon
had come to al-Ghaziyeh to seek a safe haven from the war. `Ali Deeb Zabad, a
retired Lebanese Army officer with no links to Hezbollah, who fled from Borj
al-Shemali to al-Ghaziyeh during the war (and lost his sister in the bombing,
as described below), told Human Rights Watch: "There was no Hezbollah military
presence in Ghaziyeh. The whole time I was there, there was not one bullet
fired. People felt comfortable there . Ghaziyeh was full of people [who had
fled to the town from other villages]; it had one-and-a-half times its normal
population."[394]

The Zabad family had fled from Borj al-Shemali for safety in
al-Ghaziyeh during the 48-hour ceasefire, renting an apartment next to `Ali
Zabad's sister Siham's house. In the early morning of August 7, Siham invited
`Ali over for coffee, but he declined because he had already drunk several cups
at his home. At 7:55 a.m., two Israeli air strikes hit Siham's home. The air
strikes killed five people: Siham, 43, her daughter Wafa' al-Cha`er, 39, her
grandson Hadi Ja`far, 1, and her cousin Nadia, 39. Also killed was `Ali Muhammad
Layla, 23, a neighbor who was sitting on his balcony across the street and was
killed by shrapnel. All five dead are buried as civilians.[395]
Eight others, including Siham's three sons, ages 25 to 17, were injured in the
attack but survived. According to `Ali Deeb Zabad, none of his family members
had ties to Hezbollah, and none of the apartments in the three-story building
struck were associated with Hezbollah.[396]

About 20 minutes later, the Israelis struck twice more,
targeting a series of shops in the town square and a home just 100 meters away
belonging to a civilian, Hassan Ahmad Badran, age 77. Both targets may have had
some connection to Amin Khalifa, the Hezbollah official; Khalifa's brother
Ibrahim owned the shops, and the home was close to Khalifa's empty home. Hassan
Badran, who lost most of his relatives in the strike on his home, recalled to
Human Rights Watch how he had gone out of his home just before the attack to
buy some food for his family. As he was greeting the shopkeepers in the town
square, an Israeli air strike destroyed the shops in front of him. "Dust
covered the area, and we couldn't see anything. My son Ahmad went to hide under
a car, and he was screaming for me, 'Father! Father!' When he saw me, he said,
'Praise God.' We didn't know that our own house had also been attacked."[397] The
attack killed three shopkeepers: Ahmad Mustafa Ghadar, 46; Hussain `Abbas Yuni,
39; and Muhammad Ahmad Qa`in, 65. All those killed were buried as civilians in
al-Ghaziyeh.[398]

When Hassan Badran returned home after the attack, he found
his own home reduced to rubble in the simultaneous air strike, killing most of
his family inside. Eight members of his family died in the home: Rakiya, 67,
his wife of fifty years; his six children (some by a younger second wife)
Layla, 49, Zainab, 46, `Ali, 19, Hanin, 16, Manal, 14, and Hassan, 10, and his
granddaughter (daughter of Layla) Maryam Fadil Halal, 28.[399]
All are buried as civilians. Hassan told Human Rights Watch that there were no
fighters or weapons in the home.[400]
However, the home is located just 50 meters away from the then-empty home of
Hezbollah official Amin Khalifa.

Hassan Ahmad Badran, 77, with a
photomontage of his wife, six children, and a grandchild who were killed in an
August 7, 2006 Israeli airstrike on his home in al-Ghaziyeh.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

Even if Amin Khalifa's position in Hezbollah made him a
legitimate military target (Human Rights Watch has no information to suggest
that this was the case), his family home was not necessarily a military
objective. Israel
would have had to take all feasible precautions before attacking the house to
verify that the target was a military objective, such as Khalifa's being
present at the time. Even then Israel
would have had to determine that the likely military gain of such an attack
would have exceeded the expected loss of targeting a single house in a crowded
village.

Killing of One Civilian, Houla, August 7

At about 10 a.m. on August 7, Israeli war planes launched a
number of air strikes on buildings surrounding a hussainiyya (Shi`a religious building) in the village of Houla,
located on the Israeli-Lebanese border 25 kilometers east of Tyre. Addressing
an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Beirut that day, Lebanese
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora spoke of a "horrific massacre" in Houla, leaving
"more than 40" persons dead. However, Siniora corrected himself later the same
day, stating that updated information from rescue workers had established one
person, not 40, had died in the Houla attack.[401]

According to `Aziza Shukair, 51, who was wounded in the
attack, the air strikes first hit the hussainiyya,
then a neighboring building in which 15 civilians were sheltering, and then a
third building, after the 15 civilians from the second building fled there, as
well as a fourth empty building near the second building. The air strikes
killed Hassan `Ali al-Hajj, 65, while he was running between two buildings to
seek shelter during the attack. The 15 civilians were temporarily trapped in the
basement when the building they were sheltering in collapsed following the
strikes, but all survived with minor injuries.[402]

According to Shukair, there was no Hezbollah presence in the
neighborhood at the time of the attack: "In our area, there was no resistance.
They were far away from the town. Our area was a safe area, because there is
nothing [military targets] here. The resistance fought from outside the
village, in the hills, and there was no one at the hussainiyya. A lot of people had left the village, but we had to
stay because we had livestock."[403]

The IDF has offered no explanation for the strike. According
to the Erlich Report, Hezbollah fired two rockets from within houses in Houla
during the war.[404] The
Erlich report does not specify when these rockets were fired or whether they
were fired from the buildings targeted by the IDF attack on August 7.

Killing of Nine Civilians, Brital (Beka` Valley), August 7

Between 7:30 and 8 p.m. on August 7, a massive Israeli
strike in the middle of Brital, located eight kilometers south of Baalbek in the Beka`
Valley, demolished a butcher shop and an adjoining mini-market, and sprayed
shrapnel into homes hundreds of meters away from the site of the explosion.[405] The
attack killed eight people, all young, who had gathered in the center of the
village to socialize and use the public phone, according to village officials:
`Abbas Salih, 18, the owner of the butcher shop; `Abbas Tlays, 20; `Abbas
Sawan, 17, and his twin sister Ghazalah Sawan, 17; Muhammad al-Ajami, 16;
Hawra' al-Ajami, 12; Hawra' Isma`il, 29; and the pregnant Fatima Mazlum, 17.

One of the mukhtars
of the village, Qasim Salih, 65, tried to take one of the wounded to a hospital
in Baalbek
after the attack. An Israeli missile struck the car as it was driving to the
hospital, killing the mukhtar and
further wounding his passenger, who survived the attack. All of those killed in
the attack were buried as civilians, and none was claimed by Hezbollah or other
militant factions as a "martyr."[406]

The attack on Brital was unexpected by the local villagers,
because of the peculiar situation of Brital. It is the birthplace and home of Shaikh
Subhi Tufayli, a former secretary-general of Hezbollah (1989-1991). Hezbollah
expelled Shaikh Tufayli in 1998 when he founded a civil disobedience campaign
against the Lebanese government called the "Revolution of the Hungry." In
January 1998, the Lebanese army raided his headquarters, killing his son-in-law
Khudr Tlays (a former member of Parliament for Hezbollah) and effectively
disarming the Tufayli faction. Since 1998, the Lebanese authorities kept an
active arrest warrant for Shaikh Tufayli and an active military presence around
Brital, including a military checkpoint at the entrance of the village.

It is thus unlikely that there were Hezbollah fighters
inside Shaikh Tufayli's political headquarters, or that his supporters were
cooperating with Hezbollah. The IDF may have sought to target Shaikh Tufayli
because of his strong opposition to Israel-he
had repeatedly criticized Hezbollah for muting its attacks against Israel.
But it is unlikely that he or his followers took an active part in the 2006
conflict between Israel
and Hezbollah because of the continuing tensions between Hezbollah and the
Tufayli faction, as well as the active and continuous Lebanese Army presence
around Brital.[407] None of
those killed in the air strike was a known supporter of Shaikh Tufayli or
Hezbollah. None of the individuals interviewed told Human Rights Watch about
the presence of any other fighters.

Killing of 39 Civilians, Chiah (Southern Beirut),
August 7

At 8:10 p.m. on August 7, Israeli warplanes fired at least
four missiles at three multi-level apartment buildings in the Chiah
neighborhood of southern Beirut,
which had not been previously attacked during the conflict. The Chiah
neighborhood was overflowing with refugees who had escaped from other parts of
southern Beirut considered to be more dangerous
because of their association with Hezbollah, and from southern Lebanon.
The attack was one of the deadliest of the war, killing at least 39 civilians.
According to one resident, Israel
did not drop any leaflets prior to the attack warning the civilians to leave
the area.[408]

According to multiple witnesses, Israeli drones had been
flying over the Chiah neighborhood all day on August 7. According to several
witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch, several shots were fired from an
automatic rifle shortly before the attack, either because of a local dispute or
because some men decided to fire at the Israeli drone. The Chiah neighborhood
is not a Hezbollah stronghold, and did not house Hezbollah fighters at the time
of the attack. Experienced fighters would have been unlikely to fire
ineffective automatic rifles at a distant drone, as the drones are too high in
the sky to be hit by automatic rifle fire.[409]
Shortly after the gunfire in the neighborhood, Israeli missiles struck.

Even if the gunfire drew the drone missile attack, the
Israeli forces were obliged to minimize civilian harm by not causing civilian
loss disproportionate to the expected military advantage. The drone footage
taken during the day would have shown that the neighborhood was packed with
civilians, unlike the almost abandoned parts of Dahieh that Israeli warplanes
had previously subjected to daily bombardment. Given the crowded neighborhood
and the small risk posed by the ground fire, Israel would need to show that its
missile attacks could be expected to bring a significant military gain.

Killing of 10 Civilians, al-Ghaziyeh, August 8

The day after Israeli air strikes killed 16 people in
al-Ghaziyeh, more air strikes took place on the town, including air strikes
during the funeral procession for those killed the day before. In three
separate incidents, another 10 civilians were killed.

At about 3 p.m. on August 8, Israeli warplanes fired two
missiles at the home of Mahmud Khalifa, 38 (unrelated to Amin Khalifa, the
Hezbollah leader from the same town), the owner of the town's main pharmacy. Mahmud
had just closed his pharmacy for the day and had returned home. The attack
killed seven people: Mahmud, his wife Ibtisam Dawood, 30, and their three
children, Hussain, age 10, Fatima, five, and Ahmad, two; and the parents of
Ibtisam: Mahmud al-Dabul, 75, and Abdi Muhammad Nasrallah, 70 (both buried in
their home village of `Ainata).

Mahmud Khalifa is the only member of the family who is
buried with Hezbollah honors (including a nickname, "Fazim"), and who is
claimed as a "martyr." His coworkers at the pharmacy acknowledged that he was a
town-level political member of Hezbollah, but said that he was neither a
fighter nor otherwise involved in Hezbollah's military operations during the
2006 war. Most Hezbollah officials evacuated their families from their homes in
anticipation of IDF attacks; Mahmud Khalifa's decision to remain in his home
with his family and keep his pharmacy open suggests he did not consider himself
a target for attack-evidence that he was not an active Hezbollah military
official at the time.

Around the same time, Israeli missiles fired from either
drones or helicopters struck the funeral procession for the victims killed the
day before, as well as a second private graveyard owned by the Khalifa family.
Ibrahim Khalifa, the owner of the shops that were bombed in the village square
the day before (and brother of local Hezbollah official Amin Khalifa),
recalled: "We were in the cemetery, and they attacked us there first. We were
carrying the coffins to bury them, and missiles fell on us; three missiles fell
near us. Nobody died that time, but they also bombed another cemetery, and a
small girl, Malika, was killed there."[411]

A pregnant woman, Khadija Hujeizi, 25, was standing on the
balcony of her father's home, located at the edge of the second cemetery,
holding her daughter. She watched her father and husband running back from the
funeral procession after the missile strikes. Suddenly, an Israeli missile
fired from a helicopter struck less than two meters away, gravely injuring her
and her fetus (she lost the fetus soon after the attack). Her two-year-old
daughter Malika died in her arms.[412]
According to Khadija, there was no Hezbollah presence in or near the house.

About one hour afterwards, at 4 p.m., four Israeli missiles
demolished the homes of Rida and Ahmad Khalifa, who were brothers of Hezbollah
leader Amin Muhammad Khalifa (whose national-level role in Hezbollah was
summarized above, in the case study of the August 7 air strikes on
al-Ghaziyeh). According to Ibrahim Khalifa, another brother, neither was a
Hezbollah member. At Rida's home, all six members of the family survived the
air strike. Those in Ahmad's home were not as lucky: Ahmad, 67, an Australian-Lebanese
dual national and a welder, and his wife Ibtisam al-Areibeh, 51, were instantly
killed. According to his brother Ibrahim, "One of our brothers [Amin] is in
Hezbollah; he is a leader in Hezbollah. Because of one brother in Hezbollah, they
targeted our whole family. But his house was never hit. Amin was not in town
when the attacks took place, and he does not have a house next to where the
attacks took place on our family. Amin told all of his neighbors to leave the
neighborhood, and he himself left on the first day of the war."[413]

Killing of Six Civilians and One Hezbollah Member, Mashghara (Beka`
Valley), August 9

At 2 a.m. on August 9, an Israeli air strike demolished an
inhabited home in the southern Beka` village
of Mashghara, killing seven
civilians. Earlier that night, Israeli warplanes began bombing the roads around
the village at about 10:30 p.m., cutting off all access roads. Muhammad `Amar,
21, who lived in the house next door, recalled to Human Rights Watch what had
happened that night:

We were sitting outside, under the stairs, and noticed they
kept bombing the roads around the village until 1 a.m. We were sitting outside,
and then my father told us to come in .... I was standing by the door, and my
cousin and father were inside. Suddenly, we felt a big explosion, and all of us
fell on top of each other It all became dusty, and we couldn't see anything.
We left the room and climbed on top of the rubble.[414]

While some original press accounts of the attack claimed
that Hassan Sader was a local Hezbollah official, Human Rights Watch did not
find any evidence of this.[415]
One of those killed, Muhammad Deeb Sader, was buried as an ordinary Hezbollah
member, but without military honors.[416]
Villagers denied that he was a fighter and noted that he had been living in France
for 12 years and had just come back.[417]

Killing of Five Civilians, Rabb al-Talatine, August 10 (date unknown for 5th
victim)

On August 10, Israeli war planes destroyed a home in the village of Rabb
al-Talatine, located on the Israel-Lebanon border, some 25 kilometers south of
the coastal city of Tyre,
killing four women. According to a local official, the women had stayed in the
village to look after their family's livestock and then became trapped when the
bombardment and ground fighting became too fierce. One of the women, Fatima
Barakat, 31, was wounded by shrapnel during an earlier strike. An Israeli air
strike killed her and the three other women while they were trying to move her
to a different house. The four women killed were Fatima, her mother Khadija,
66, her grandmother Naife, 81, and their relative Amsha Hammud, 84. No
Hezbollah fighters died in the attack, and there is no indication they were
present around the home at the time of the attack. In all likelihood, the women
were spotted by Israeli surveillance while they were moving the wounded woman
and attacked because of this movement. All of the victims were buried as
civilians.[418]

A fifth elderly woman, Fatima `Ali Fakih, 62, also died
during the bombardment of the town, although the date of her death is unknown.
During the conflict, she was staying with relatives but returned home to check
on things. After the war, her body was found inside her demolished home.[419]

Killing of Five Civilians, Borj al-Shemali, August 13

At 3:50 a.m. on August 13, an Israeli war plane fired a
missile at a home in Borj al-Shemali, demolishing the structure and killing
five sleeping civilians inside. `Abbas `Ali Zain, 43, a tractor driver who lost
his wife and three children in the attack, explained that he had moved his
family to his father-in-law's home because his own home was located near orange
groves at the outskirts of the village, and there had been repeated Israeli air
strikes on the groves. When the strike hit the home, he recalled, "I didn't
hear anything, I just woke up to everything falling on me."[420]

Those killed in the attack were `Abbas's first wife, Zainab
`Ali Tawila, 37; his sons Abdullah, 16, and Zain al-Abadin, 13, and his
daughter Wafa, 10, who, he recalled bitterly, "was born on the last day of the
1996 war, and died on the last day of the 2006 war." Also killed was the Sri
Lankan maid of the family, Raniya Josef, 27.[421]
All are buried as civilians in Borj al-Shemali (except the Sri Lankan maid, who
was buried in a Christian cemetery in Tyre).

None of the people inside the home was Hezbollah-affiliated,
and the family members were political supporters of the Amal party. "I'm a
peaceful person, I have nothing to do with fighting," `Abbas told Human Rights
Watch.[422] It
remains unclear why the home was attacked. There was no Hezbollah activity in
or in the vicinity of the home at the time of the strike, and no weapons were
stored in the home.

At 2:35 p.m. on August 13, Israeli war planes mounted one of
the largest air strikes of the war on the Imam Hassan building complex in the
Rweiss neighborhood of southern Beirut, a mostly Shi`a area previously
untouched by Israeli bombing raids. The ImamHassanBuilding complex
consisted of eight 10-story buildings with three apartments on each floor,
housing some 240 families. The attack involved an estimated 20 missile strikes
on the housing complex, and destroyed it, killing at least 40 persons.

According to a local shopowner who was present at the time
of the attack, the electricity had come back on at about 2 p.m., and many of
the residents of the building complex had gone up to to check on their
apartments, shower, collect food items, and then return to the shelters in a
neighboring school and a shoe factory. Many of the families knew the UN
Security Council had imposed an end to the fighting the next day, August 14,
and had bought cleaning products to clean their apartments in anticipation of
the end of the war.[423] Without
warning, Israeli air planes mounted multiple raids on the complex, collapsing
the multi-story buildings on the residents. Eighteen-year-old Hassan al-Tirani
returned to the complex to find his building destroyed, his father buried in
the rubble. "When it happened, I came home right away," he told Human Rights
Watch. "I can't describe to you how I felt. Your home, your friends, your
parentsyou come and you don't find anything left. We lived here for 12 years."[424]

Almost all of the victims were civilians, including many
women and children who had returned to clean their homes. The strike also
killed a low-ranking local Hezbollah military official, `Ali Hassan Kdouh, who
lived in the building complex (his tomb identifies him as a Hezbollah "martyr
leader"), as well as three low-ranking Hezbollah members who happened to be
visiting the complex: Muhammad Harb, `Ali Charara, and Muhammad Charara.[425] It is
unknown whether the three low-ranking Hezbollah members played any military
role in Hezbollah.

It is unlikely that Israel would have launched such a
massive strike to kill such low-ranking Hezbollah officials. More likely, it
had faulty intelligence that senior Hezbollah leaders were present at the
complex, or that the complex had underground bunkers to hide senior Hezbollah
officials. A Hezbollah official told Human Rights Watch that they believed a
non-Hezbollah Lebanese minister had passed on false information to Israel, via the US embassy, that senior Hezbollah
leaders were gathered at the complex, a charge Human Rights Watch was unable to
confirm or disprove.[426] After
the attack, Israel
claimed to have killed a senior Hezbollah official, Sajad Dawir.[427] But this
official appeared after the war to confirm that he was still alive. And in any
event, the killing of a single Hezbollah official could not have justified
targeting a civilian complex with the attendant and predictable large civilian
toll. There is no evidence that senior Hezbollah officials were present at the
complex, and Human Rights Watch did not find any evidence of underground bunker
structures during an inspection of the site on October 30, 2006.

Killing of Six Civilians, Brital (Beka` Valley), August 13

Following the unexpected August 7 air strike on Brital that
killed nine people, many families fled their homes and sought safety with
relatives. Five families totaling 24 persons, including 12 children, sought
safety in the home of `Ali Hussain Mazlum, 70, the owner of a furniture
factory. Among those who sought safety at his house was his son-in-law, the
head of the Brital municipality, `Abbas Isma`il. "The house had nothing to do
with Hezbollah, so we thought we were completely safe," `Abbas Isma`il recalled
to Human Rights Watch, "It was a nice house with a big yard for the children to
play in."[429]

At 11:15 p.m. on August 13, a single missile fired from an
Israeli war plane destroyed the two-story home. `Abbas Isma`il told Human
Rights Watch:

Most of my relatives were already asleep. I was still
watching television. At 11:15 p.m., the house was targeted. There was one
explosion. I didn't even hear it; I just woke up under the rubble. It targeted
the foundation of the house, at the bottom corner. When the bomb hit, it
destroyed the whole house except for the kitchen.[430]

The attack killed six people: `Ali Hussain Mazlum, 70, the
owner of the house; his sister Fatima, 58; his daughter-in-law Zainab Muhammad
Shmeiss, 36; her daughters Ala'a, 18, and Fatima, 6; and Ammar `Uthman, 30, a
displaced person from Baalbek who had sought safety in Brital.[431] The
attack wounded 18 others, three of them so seriously that they were still
receiving medical treatment one month after the attack. All of the dead were
buried as civilians.

`Abbas Isma`il and other municipal officials-who had no
Hezbollah, Amal, or other religious symbols in their offices, unlike many other
Shi`a municipal offices in Lebanon-said
there was no Hezbollah or any other military presence in the village at the
time of the attacks. They explained in detail the 1998 dispute with Hezbollah
and the Lebanese authority that had led to the demilitarization of the village
and the location of a permanent Lebanese army checkpoint at the entrance of the
village. "I would not have placed myself and my children in danger if there
were any Hezbollah activities nearby," `Abbas Isma`il explained, "During the
war, I went on [Lebanese] television to tell people that our village was safe,
and we welcomed displaced persons . There is no operative existence of
Hezbollah in our village, and we did not allow anyone to bring weapons to our
village because we didn't want to be in danger."[432]

B. Attacks
on Vehicles and Fleeing Civilians

Killing of Twenty-three Civilians Fleeing Marwahin, July 15

On July 15, an Israeli strike on a convoy of vehicles
containing civilians fleeing from the Lebanese border village of Marwahin
killed twenty-three people, including 14 children and seven women (two of whom
were pregnant).[433] Because
of the high death toll and the accusations against Israel, the United Nations, and
Hezbollah about their respective roles in the incident, Human Rights Watch
carried out a detailed investigation. Some of the information contained below
has already been discussed above in the chapter on Hezbollah violations during
the war, but is repeated here for the sake of completeness of the narrative.

Marwahin is a Sunni village located on the border with Israel.
The village is not a Hezbollah stronghold. According to the villagers of
Marwahin, they began having problems with Hezbollah fighters and weapons
infiltrating their village almost as soon as the war started. One witness
described how two Hezbollah fighters, one dressed in military camouflage and a
second in civilian clothes, came to Marwahin on July 12, the day of the
abduction of the two IDF soldiers, and began scouting the village. An Israeli
helicopter was overhead, looking for Hezbollah fighters. Zahra Abdullah, 52,
one of the women who later died in July 15 Israeli strike, shouted at the
fighters to leave, saying that if the helicopter spotted them, it would attack
the village.[434]

The Hezbollah fighters ignored her, returning later that day
with a white van packed with weapons, and parking it next to the village
mosque, where it remained until it was destroyed by an Israeli strike.Unknown
to the villagers, Hezbollah had also placed a large cache of rockets and other
weapons in the home of a villager who was sympathetic to Hezbollah, and whose
name is known to Human Rights Watch.[435]
Following the war, Human Rights Watch researchers found both the destroyed van
and the destroyed weapons cache in the home, both still carrying the remains of
rockets, rocket propelled grenades, and other weaponry.

On July 15 around 7 or 8 a.m., Zahra spotted three Hezbollah
fighters carrying weapons and rockets behind her home, hiding the weapons in
blue blankets. She again confronted the fighters, telling them, "Please, there
are children inside this home." One of the Hezbollah fighters turned his
automatic weapon on her, and told her to "shut up and go inside." Zahra
returned to her home, crying.[436]

Around the same time that Zahra confronted the Hezbollah
fighters, the Israeli army ordered the villagers (in Arabic) to immediately
evacuate the village, using loudspeakers attached to the Israeli transmission
towers located along the border.

According to Salih Ibrahim Ghannam, who was in phone contact
from Beirut with
those in Marwahin that morning, the villagers tried to seek safety at a nearby
post manned by the United Nations Truce Supervisory Organization (UNTSO) and
the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL):

I was in phone contact with my relatives in the village.
Around 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. on that day, my relatives called to say that the
Israelis had warned they should evacuate in two hours. The Israelis had spoken
on loudspeakers in Arabic from across the border, which is nearby. My relatives
said they would go to the UNIFIL post beside the village. They went to the
outpost and stayed there for two hours, but after two hours, UNIFIL said they
had orders not to let them in.[437]

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan later acknowledged that UN
officials refused assistance to the Marwahin villagers, but denied
responsibility for subsequent events, saying that those who were killed later
that day in an Israeli strike were "unrelated" to the group that approached the
UN for protection: "Contrary to what was reported in the media, these were not
the same civilians who had approached UNIFIL for shelter previously."[438]

However, Human Rights Watch's investigations established
that some of those who died were indeed part of the group who had been rebuffed
by the UN officials at the observation post. Others who died were also waiting
for the UN's response, even though they had not gone to the UN post themselves.
Wissam Abdullah, a 15-year-old survivor of the strike, explained to Human
Rights Watch that the whole village was waiting to hear what the response of
the UN observers would be: "Some people decided to go to the UN position and
walked there. We waited at the central square of the village. There were many
people there waiting, waiting for an answer [from the United Nations]. Then
people came back and they said, 'The United Nations will not take us.'"[439] His
father, Muhammad, who was not in the village at the time but remained in
constant cellphone contact with his relatives, gave a similar timeline in a
separate interview:

The villagers went to the center affiliated with the UN
truce force [UNTSO] at 9:15 a.m. and spoke with three officers of different
nationalities. They did not agree to let them in. At that point, the group of
villagers split into two. One group went to the UNIFIL post and another group
went back to the village square to wait for the UNIFIL answer. The UNIFIL
people said, "We will count you and let you in." An officer from UNTSO then
went to the UNIFIL post and told them not to allow [the civilians] in so as to
avoid another Qana massacre.[440]

It is possible that the UN officers had explicit orders not
to allow civilians to seek shelter at their base during times of active
hostilities, orders that the UN had implemented after an Israeli attack on the
UNIFIL barracks in Qana in 1996 that killed over 100 civilians sheltering
there.[441] The UN
should investigate whether UN officers on the scene could have taken action
that would have better protected the civilians, given that a number of members
of the larger group died in the ensuing Israeli attack.

Confronted with Hezbollah militants in their town, ordered
to evacuate immediately by Israel, and unable to find protection with the
United Nations, a group of civilians packed into a convoy of three vehicles to
flee their village: `Ali Abdullah's white Daihatsu pickup had 27 people, `Ali
Seif's brown Mercedes had six people, and a blue Mercedes whose owner is
unknown contained an unknown number of people. The passengers in all three
vehicles waved white flags to make sure the Israelis didn't mistake them for
Hezbollah fighters. The convoy first drove to the neighboring village of Umm
al-Tut; there, they waited for an hour to see if a car that had gone ahead of
their convoy had made it to Tyre
safely. When they received a cellphone call telling them that the car ahead of
them had safely reached Tyre,
they decided to proceed.[442] The blue
Mercedes split off from the convoy at this point and took a different road.

As the two remaining cars reached the coast just before Bayyada,
on a bluff overlooking the Mediterranean Sea,
the pickup truck overheated and broke down. The convoy could hardly have taken
a worse place to stop; an Israeli gunship was located just offshore, and the
Israeli Navy had been placed on high alert for attacks against their ships.
Just the evening before, Hezbollah had stunned the Israeli Navy by attacking
one of their most advanced gunboats, the IDF missile ship Ahi Hanit, with a C-802 Silkworm anti-ship cruise missile, killing
four IDF sailors and crippling the ship. The C-802 is a 715-kilogram
laser-guided missile, a sophisticated weapon, and its use took the IDF by
surprise.[443]

The sudden appearance of two parked vehicles, including a
pickup truck, in line of sight of another Israeli warship the morning after
this attack probably caused the Israelis to assume the broken-down civilian
convoy was another Hezbollah missile firing team preparing to attack their
ship, notwithstanding the white flags on the cars (which may not have been
visible from the ship.)

`Ali, the driver of the pickup truck, ordered the children
to get out of the back of the pick-up so that the Israelis would realize they
were civilians (some of the passengers were at this point too tired to get out
of the truck). After the drivers desperately tried to restart the pickup for
about seven minutes, a missile suddenly struck the cab of the pickup, killing
`Ali and his elderly mother. Two survivors told Human Rights Watch that they
believed the Israelis ship offshore fired the first missile at them, but the
accuracy of the strike and the relatively limited damage caused suggests that
an unseen Israeli drone overhead might have fired it instead, as there was
little likelihood of a dead-on strike on the truck from the ship.[444] The
initial strike wounded many of the children and women in the convoy, but they
survived and attempted to crawl to safety.

One survivor, 15-year-old Wissam Abdullah, described how
after that first attack, an Israeli Apache helicopter appeared and now attacked
the fleeing civilians, firing at least four missiles at them and spraying them
with machine-gun fire:

I was injured from the first missile. The shrapnel hit me
in my right thigh, and the explosion made me fly out of the pickup truck. The
shrapnel had cut an artery, and the blood started flowing . Then, an Apache
came; I saw it with my own eyes. It was flying at medium height. The Apache
fired [a missile] at the pickup and then fired [a missile] at the brown
Mercedes. My sister Mirna was in the truck. I went to help her, but the Apache
fired a missile between us [killing Mirna,] and it threw me backwards. I think
there were four missiles fired by the Apache. It also used machine-gun
fire-there were still people alive and it fired at them with its machine guns.
I pretended I was dead. I hid in the grass and pretended I was dead.[445]

Humanitarian law requires that warring parties take constant
care in the conduct of military operations to minimize harm to civilians. Not
only must they do everything feasible to verify that targets are military
objectives, but once it becomes apparent that the target is not a military
objective, they must do everything feasible to cancel or suspend an attack.[446] Thus
even if the IDF had a justifiable basis for the initial attack on the vehicles
(and it is far from clear that the IDF should not have been seen the civilian
nature of the vehicles using visual enhancing devices), the IDF should have
halted the helicopter attack as soon as it was apparent that the target was not
a military objective.

All of the persons killed in the attack were buried as
civilians. Angry residents from Marwahin clashed with Hezbollah representatives
who tried to attend the funeral, arguing that they were partly to blame for the
deaths. In the words of Muhammad Abdullah, who lost his wife Zahra and two
children in the attack: "I hold everyone responsible for the deaths of my
family: the United Nations, Israel,
and Hezbollah."[448]

About two hours after the attack, Lebanese ambulances
reached the scene and evacuated some of the wounded and dead. Later, UNIFIL
retrieved an additional 16 bodies from the scene and stated that their medical
teams came under fire during the rescue operation.[449]
A photographer for an international news agency arrived at the scene
approximately two hours after the attack, after the Lebanese ambulances and
before UNIFIL, and told Human Rights Watch that he found a white pickup truck
and a passenger car completely destroyed, and counted sixteen bodies at the
scene, many of them children.[450] There
was no evidence of any Hezbollah presence either in the vehicles attacked or at
the scene where the attack took place.

Killing of Three Civilians, Sheem, July 16

At about 10 p.m. on the evening of July 16, an Israeli
warplane targeted five transport trucks parked in an open area operating as an
informal truck stop between the Sunni Muslim villages of Shmeiss and Sheem. The
villagers at the truck stop specialized in truck repairs, and all five of the
trucks had their cargo area uncovered and were unloaded. Human Rights Watch
researchers inspected the destroyed trucks during a site visit on September 23,
and found no evidence to suggest that any military cargo was being carried by
the trucks, such as evidence of secondary explosions. According to the
residents, who are Sunni Muslims unaffiliated with Hezbollah, the five trucks
were simply commercial vehicles that had been parked there and had no
connection to Hezbollah.

The initial air strike destroyed the five trucks and the
main road and sprayed a neighboring residential apartment building with
shrapnel. The shrapnel and broken glass wounded at least 28 of the residents
there, including two who had serious injuries: Munifa Darwish, 70, and her Sri
Lankan maid, Malika. Neighbors quickly evacuated the two, and a neighbor, Samir
Ahmad Abdullah, 42, put them in his car to take them to the hospital. Another
relative accompanied them in a separate car.

As they left the apartment building in his car, about 10
minutes after the initial attack, the Israeli warplane returned and attacked
again, this time firing a missile close to the vehicle. The strike killed
Samir, Munifa, and Malika. The relative in the other car survived the attack
with massive injuries and remained hospitalized at the time of Human Rights
Watch's visit to the site two months later.[451]

Killing of Five Civilians Smuggling Fuel in Beka` Valley, July 19

During the night of July 18-19, at about 3 a.m., Israeli
drones struck three separate vehicles smuggling fuel along the Syrian-Lebanese
border. The Lebanese smugglers, all of them Sunni Muslims with no links to
Hezbollah, had traveled to the Syrian border over dirt mountain roads to fill
up large fuel containers on their pick-up trucks with diesel, which was in
short supply following Israel's imposition of a total air, sea, and land
embargo on Lebanon. Five people died in the drone strikes.

At about 3 a.m., an Israeli drone struck a pickup truck with
a container of smuggled diesel as its driver was unloading the diesel at a gas
station in the village
of Ham, having just
returned from the Syrian border. The strike killed two brothers in the truck,
Faidullah Mustafa, 27, and Shahid Mustafa, 23.[452]
Around the same time, an Israeli drone struck two pickups loaded with smuggled
diesel driving on a mountain road between the Syrian border and the Lebanese village of Maaraboun, killing all three persons in
the vehicles: Diab Yahya, 27, his cousin Muafaq Yahya, 32, and their neighbor
Muhammad Ahmad Muhammad, 40.[453] All of
the victims were unaffiliated with Hezbollah.

Civilians transporting fuel unconnected to any fighting are
not directly participating in hostilities and thus cannot be subject to direct
attack.[454] While
fuel can be a valid military objective, and thus a legitimate target of attack,
it would need to be shown not only that the fuel could effectively support the
adversary's military operations, but that its destruction offered the attacker
a definite military advantage.[455] There
was no evidence that the fuel in these incidents was being or would have been
used for military purposes, as it was delivered to civilian fuel stations in
Sunni villages.

Killing of Six and Wounding of Eight Civilians Fleeing `Aitaroun, July 19

Villagers began fleeing `Aitaroun, a village located just
one kilometer north of the Israel-Lebanon border, after two major IDF strikes
there killed 12 civilians on July 16 and another nine civilians on July 18 (see
above). As explained by one of those who fled in a convoy, Husam Haidar: "After
the second massacre, we got really scared. It became difficult to come and go.
The owner of the gas station insisted on leaving. I had received calls from
relatives in Beirut
to leave."[456]

On July 18, a three-car convoy left `Aitaroun at about 3
p.m. and safely reached the Chouf mountains surrounding Beirut, a mostly non-Shi`a area that was
virtually unaffected by the bombing. The next morning, another three-car convoy
left `Aitaroun at about 8 a.m. with 16 people, flying white flags.

As the convoy drove between Bazouriye and Hosh, just on the
outskirts of the coastal city of Tyre,
an Israeli drone attacked them. Husam Haidar, a teacher who was in the third
car in the convoy, told Human Rights Watch:

At Bazouriye, debris blocked the main road. There was a
cardboard marker with the direction for Tyre
written on it. There we went ahead towards Tyre. We drove for 500 meters. Then the first
car driven by Said lit up brightly, and we heard an explosion. A second later,
a missile hit Ghassan's car, which was the second car.

We panicked and ran out of our car and hid in a fruit
orchard. Suddenly a missile came between us. It hit my wife in the left arm and
cut her main artery and some nerves. She lost a finger in her left hand. My
daughter had blood all over her face. Shrapnel injured her legs, chest, and
shoulder.

My mother was not yet hurt. She stood up [after the
explosion] and was walking to the fruit orchard. Another missile hit, and I
next saw my mother lying on the ground. She had lost her leg and arm and died
10 minutes later. My father lost a finger and received shrapnel in his leg.[457]

Four people inside the first car died: Sa`id Hamze `Abbas,
in his fifties; Fatima `Abbas, 45; Sara Wasef
`Abbas, age one; and `Aliya Mansur, 45. The two other passengers were wounded
but survived. A second car in the convoy was also hit, killing the driver
Ghassan Fakih, 35, and wounding two passengers. Husam's mother Laila Haidar,
also killed in the attack, was 67. The four other passengers were severely
hurt.

There was no Hezbollah presence in the convoy, according to
one of the survivors, herself gravely wounded in the attack: "There were no
fighters in the cars, no weapons, just civilians trying to escape."[458] She said
there was no Hezbollah presence in the area where they were attacked: "There
was nothing around the area where we were attacked, only fruit orchards-no
people and no fighters, it was an empty area."[459]
Husam Haidar told Human Rights Watch:

None of us are military, and there were no weapons in the
car. In the area around where we were attacked, I did not see any military [Hezbollah]
presence. Until now, I try to analyze what happened, and I still don't have an
answer. We were clearly civilians; we had white flags. Other cars passed after
us and nothing happened to them.[460]

The IDF has not given any explanation for the attack or any
information regarding any Hezbollah activity in the vicinity of the convoy at
the time of its attack.

Killing of Three and Wounding of 14 Civilians Fleeing al-Tiri, July 23

Heavy Israeli bombardment in al-Tiri, located between Bint
Jbeil and Tibnine, had trapped 49 members of the extended Sh`aito family in a
single home since the beginning of the war. Running out of food, the family
decided to leave the village after hearing evacuation orders from the IDF. On
July 21, the family contacted the Lebanese Red Cross for assistance with
evacuation, but the Red Cross was unable to reach the village. On July 22, 32
family members, including most of the children present in the house, packed
into a jeep and two cars, leaving 17 family members behind without transportation.
The first convoy made it safely to Tyre.

On July 23, the remaining family members convinced a taxi
driver to take them to Tyre
in a van, paying US$1,000 for the drive. The family waved a large white flag
outside the van, and many of the family members held smaller white cloths, to
indicate their civilian status.[461]

-

The remains of a civilian van near
Kafra, hit by an Israeli drone-fired missile on July 23, 2006.The van contained 17 civilians of the Sh`aito
family fleeing their homes in al-Tiri.Three family members died and 14 were wounded. 2006 Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

As the van passed Kafra, it was hit by an Israeli strike.
Musbah Sh`aito, who was sitting next to the driver but survived, told Human
Rights Watch: "I heard a noise like a blown tire, and the van started swerving.
I told the driver to slow down, and he said, 'We've been hit!' The van stopped,
and the driver and I got out. As the driver was calling on me to help get the
wounded out, a second missile hit the car."[462]
Apparently an Israeli drone, unseen in the sky, fired the missiles.

Three persons died in the missile attack: Nazira Sh`aito,
about 70; her son Muhammad Amin Sh`aito, 53; and the family's Syrian janitor,
Zakwan [family name unknown], in his mid-forties. Their bodies remained in the
vehicle after the attack until the 48-hour ceasefire because recovery teams
could not reach the area for days after the incident. The attack wounded the 14
other family members, including several who required extensive hospitalization.

According to Musbah Sh`aito, "When we were hit, there was no
one around-no resistance [Hezbollah], nothing. The only person we saw on the
road was a wounded driver by the side of the road, asking for help."[463]
Passengers driving through an area would not necessarily know whether Hezbollah
fighters were generally active in the area. However, the IDF has not offered
any explanation for the attack or any information regarding Hezbollah activity
in the vicinity of the van at the time of its attack.

Killing of Two and Wounding of Four Civilians Fleeing Mansouri, July 23

The Srour family, which resides in Germany, was vacationing in the seaside village of Mansouri,
10 miles south of Tyre, having arrived two days
before the fighting in Lebanon
began.[464] On July
23, the family attempted to travel in a three-car convoy to Tyre,
waving white flags, to evacuate to Germany. At about 10:30 a.m., an
Israeli helicopter or drone fired at the vehicle some four kilometers south of
Tyre, near the village of Ma`liye. Darwish Mudaihli, 38, the hired driver of
the car, died instantly, as did his brother-in-law, Muhammad Srour, 36. The car
caught on fire with the bodies of Darwish Mudaihli and Muhammad Srour inside.

Muhammad Srour's children, Ahmad, age 15; `Ali, 13; Mahmud,
eight; and eight-month-old Maryam were severely burned during the attack and
were evacuated to Germany
for specialized medical treatment. There was no sign of Hezbollah military
activity or weapons in the vicinity, relatives of the victims familiar with the
circumstances of the attack told Human Rights Watch, and no one in the family
had any connections to Hezbollah.[465]
The IDF did not offer any explanation for the attack or any information
regarding any Hezbollah activity in the vicinity of the van at the time of its
attack.

Wounding of Nine Civilians Fleeing Mansouri, July 23

Shortly after the attack on the Srour family (above), an
Israeli Apache helicopter hit a second civilian car in the same area. Zain
Zabad, a 45-year-old fruit farmer, had also driven up from Mansouri, attempting
to evacuate his wife and four children. On the way, the family picked up a man
who had been wounded when an air strike hit his car in Qlaile, and two more
wounded people in Ma`liye (the same area as the Srour attack), who were hit by
an Israeli helicopter strike while riding a motorcycle. `Ali Ja`far, a
21-year-old day laborer who was injured in the strike on his motorcycle, told
Human Rights Watch:

When I was hit, there was nothing around, no resistance
[Hezbollah]. I was driving in shorts with my bag over my back, looking like a
civilian . I was driving the motorcycle and suddenly it just melted in my
hands. There was a missile from a helicopter . [Zain Zabad's car] stopped to
take us away; its driver was from our village.[466]

Subsequently, a munition fired from an Israeli Apache
helicopter struck Zain Zabad's car just 40 meters from the Najem hospital,
wounding all nine persons inside.[467]
The attack on the Zabad family took place within sight of the NajemHospital.
The IDF did not offer any explanation for the attack or any information
regarding any Hezbollah activity in the vicinity of the car at the time of its
attack.

Wounding of Six Ambulance Drivers and Three Patients, July 23

On July 23, at 11:15 p.m., Israeli forces attacked two
Lebanese Red Cross ambulances in Qana, almost certainly with missiles fired
from an Israeli drone flying overhead.

The ambulances, which had Red Cross flags illuminated by a
spotlight mounted on the ambulance, were transferring three wounded Lebanese
civilians from one ambulance to the other when the missiles struck. Some
websites subsequently claimed that the attack on the ambulances "never
happened" and was a Hezbollah-orchestrated hoax.[468]
In response, Human Rights Watch researchers carried out a more in-depth
investigation of the Qana ambulance attacks and issued a separate report on its
findings.[469] The
information below summarizes the main findings of Human Rights Watch's
investigation:

At about 9:30 p.m., Israeli forces fired artillery shells
near the Tibnine home of Ahmad Fawaz, 41, a car mechanic. The attack injured
five members of the Fawaz family: Ahmad Fawaz; his twin sons Muhammad and Ali,
13; his wife Fatima; his mother Jamila, 80.[470]
All five were transferred to the Tibnine hospital, where they received first
aid. Shortly after 10:30 p.m., the TibnineHospital asked the Red Cross to
prepare to transfer the three most seriously wounded-Ahmad, Muhammad, and
Jamila-to Tyre
for further treatment.

The Lebanese Red Cross officials in Tibnine made contact
with their counterparts in Tyre; they decided to
dispatch a second ambulance from Tyre
to meet the Tibnine ambulance mid-way in Qana to take the wounded so that the
Tibnine ambulance could return to its base.

The ambulance crews
interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported that both ambulances were clearly
marked and identifiable as ambulances from a great distance. Painted white,
they had large red crosses painted on their sides and roof. They each had a
large Red Cross flag attached to the roof, illuminated by a spotlight mounted
on the roof. The ambulances also had a piercing, flashing blue light designed
to be visible at a great distance, even at night. The ambulance personnel
confirmed that they had left their lights and sirens on during the entire
operation, as standard procedure.[471]

The two ambulances arrived in Qana around the same time and
parked close to each other in the central square. The ambulance crews quickly
transferred the three wounded from the Tibnine ambulance to the Tyre ambulance. As one of
the Red Cross members was closing the back door of the Tyre ambulance, a missile most likely fired
from an Israeli drone struck the rear of the roof of the ambulance that was now
holding the wounded.[472]

The missile traveled from the roof of the Tyre ambulance
through the gurney on which Ahmad Fawaz was strapped, severing his leg, and
then through the floor of the ambulance deep into the pavement of the road.
Ahmad Fawaz recalled to Human Rights Watch that he was knocked unconscious by
the first attack, but soon awoke to realize he had lost his leg:

When I woke up, there were still explosions, but farther
away from us . I extended my hand to my leg and realized I had lost my leg. It
was my right leg. I did not feel anything. I also received shrapnel to my left
leg, and it was broken. My left knee cap was also affected . I stayed in the
ambulance for one and a half hours.[473]

Muhammad received additional shrapnel wounds to his chest
and head from the attack on the ambulance, and Jamila sustained serious
shrapnel wounds.[474] All of
the ambulance workers managed to run away from their vehicles and sought
shelter in a nearby building.

Minutes later, a second missile, again most likely from an
Israeli drone, hit the Tibnine ambulance right through the middle of the Red
Cross emblem on its roof. The ambulance crews stayed in the basement of the
building for an hour and 40 minutes. At 1:15 a.m., a new ambulance crew from Tyre finally managed to
reach Qana and evacuate the wounded patients and ambulance crews.

International humanitarian law provides that medical
transports used exclusively for medical transportation must be respected and
protected at all times. They lose their protection only if they are being used
outside their humanitarian function to commit acts harmful to the enemy.[475] There is
no basis for concluding that Hezbollah was making use of the ambulances for a
military purpose, and Human Rights Watch is not aware of any allegations by the
IDF or in the media that Lebanese ambulances were misused for military purposes
during the 2006 war.[476]

Killing of One Civilian Traveling to Buy Food, Supplies, and Medication,
July 24

On the morning of July 24, Hassan Ibrahim al-Sayyid, a
26-year-old man from the village
of Beit Leef, was killed
when an Israeli helicopter or drone fired on him while he was driving his
motorcycle. Hassan's sister, Husen al-Sayyid, told Human Rights Watch that
Hassan had left his village to buy food, candles, and medication from a
neighboring village for his brother, who was receiving dialysis treatment.[477] The
weapon hit Hassan's motorbike on the road between Kafra and Siddiquine.
According to his sister, Hassan was not a member of Hezbollah. Hassan's corpse
was transferred to Tyre's
public hospital after the attack.[478]
Human Rights Watch was unable to determine whether he was later buried as a
civilian or as a "martyr." The IDF did not issue any statements about this
attack.

Killing of Seven Civilians, Marja`youn Convoy, August 11

Marja`youn, a large, mostly Christian town located south of
the Litani River and six miles north of the Galilee panhandle, was largely
spared the impact of the war. According to Karim Michel Rached, the mukhtar of Jdeidet Marj`ayoun, one of
the neighborhoods of the city, local security officials had reached an
agreement with Hezbollah, largely abided by, to stay out of the city during the
war.[479] Another
villager from Jdeidet Marja`youn told Human Rights Watch: "When the war
started, it was between Hezbollah and Israel. We stayed in our homes.
There is no Hezbollah here, because they don't have supporters. The closest
Shi`a village is five minutes away by car. We were reassured that Israel
would not target us, and so we stayed in our homes."[480]

However, according to a number of local residents interviewed
by Human Rights Watch, members of the Syrian Nationalist Party fought against
Israeli commandos who landed in Marja`youn near the end of the war, ignoring
the objections of local residents who feared that the town would be bombed in
retaliation.[481] On the evening
of August 9, Israeli commando forces landed in Marja`youn and began an
operation to take control. Fighters from the Syrian Nationalist Party briefly
confronted the Israeli commandos, but then abandoned their positions inside the
village after coming under Israeli fire. The Israeli shelling wounded several
residents. By August 10, the Israeli commandos had taken firm control of
Marja`youn, and the local officials, anticipating fierce fighting between the
Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters (who called off their earlier
commitment not to enter Marja`youn following Israel's invasion of the town),
worked with the local Lebanese Army commander, Colonel `Adnan Daoud, to
organize a large-scale evacuation of the village. A local official explained
the decision to evacuate:

Our problems started Wednesday [August 9] at 7 p.m. The
Israelis shelled Marja`youn with 155mm shells, the night of their invasion.
They came in on Thursday morning. There was a panic. People stayed inside their
homes, talking on their phones and cellphones. The communications between the
people in the town concluded that the situation was unbearable. The hospital
was closed; there was no electricity. No ambulances could move because it would
be targeted. The base of the joint security force [headed by Colonel `Adnan
Daoud] was being evacuated, and we were expecting operations by Hezbollah
against the Israelis, which meant that we would be shelled.[482]

Colonel `Adnan Daoud, working through the Lebanese Army's
Directorate of Intelligence and UNIFIL intermediaries, contacted the IDF to
seek safe passage for a convoy to evacuate the civilians as well as his
Lebanese Army soldiers and Internal Security Forces (i.e. police) from
Marja`youn. According to all of the Lebanese officials and civilians
interviewed by Human Rights Watch, as well as UNIFIL official statements, the
convoy obtained permission from the Israeli authorities before proceeding
north. A statement issued by UNIFIL after the incident confirmed that "[a]t the
request of the Lebanese government, UNIFIL was in contact with the IDF to
facilitate the withdrawal of the Lebanese Joint Security Forces from Marja`youn
[on August 11]. Israeli forces informed UNIFIL that they agree[d] to such a
request."[483] After
the incident, the IDF issued a statement that it had received the request, but
had not authorized it: "It is important to note that a request for the passage
of the convoy was submitted to the IDF coordination apparatuses prior to its
departure and was not authorized."[484]

Human Rights Watch believes that the IDF's claim that it had
not authorized the movement of the convoy is implausible. Lebanese authorities
and UNIFIL kept the convoy waiting for hours while they sought Israeli
authorization for its passage, and, according to both the Lebanese authorities
and UNIFIL, let it proceed only after they obtained the Israeli authorization.
During the conflict, UNIFIL had set up a regular channel of communication and
standard operating procedures with Israeli authorities to seek authorization for
its movements, and it is extremely unlikely that UNIFIL would have violated
these procedures by agreeing to escort an unauthorized convoy.

As word of the convoy spread, hundreds of civilian cars
gathered from Marja`youn as well as from the villages surrounding Marja`youn.
By the time the convoy departed around 4 p.m. on August 11, it consisted of at
least 87 vehicles of Lebanese Joint Security Forces (JSF), 10 vehicles of
Lebanese Internal Security Forces, and several hundred civilian vehicles,
stretching for miles along the road.[485]
Two UNIFIL armored personnel carriers led the convoy until it departed out of
UNIFIL's area of operations in southern Lebanon and then continued without
UNIFIL escort.[486] The
Lebanese army deployed its personnel along the route to direct the massive
convoy to safety.

At about 10 p.m., the front of the convoy came under fire
from Israeli drones in the area of Kefraya, in the Beka` Valley. Laila Najem,
who was wounded in the attack, recalled what happened to Human Rights Watch:

We got to the Beka` Valley and decided to get out of our
cars and rest. Then the raid happened. The first missile fell near the Colonel
[Daoud]'s vehicle, four cars in front of us. We were in a valley with no houses
or trees. People left their cars and ran. The second strike was next to our car
[and wounded us with shrapnel]. The third strike killed Elie Salameh and
Colette Makdissi, the wife of the mukhtar
[Karim Michel Rached].[487]

Mukhtar Karim
Michel Rached recounted to Human Rights Watch how he lost his wife in the
attack:

The first strike hit the front of the convoy, near the
permanent Lebanese army post in Kefraya . I was in the middle of the convoy.
The strike stopped the convoy. My belief is that they were aiming at Colonel
Daoud, the head of the security forces . We stopped and got out of our cars. A
second missile flashed. I called my cousin who was at the front of the convoy.
He told me, "They have attacked us, run away." We decided to turn off our
lights, to turn around the car and go back. I started off and then a missile
fell behind me, 10 meters away. It killed my wife. It shattered all of the
windows in our car.[488]

The attack killed six or seven people:[489]
the wife of the mukhtar, Colette
Ibrahim Makdissi, 51; Elie Salameh, 45; Michel Jbayleh, a Lebanese Red Cross
volunteer who was struck while assisting the wounded;[490]
Khaled Abdullah; and Kamil Tahtah. It injured at least 32 others.

Following the attack, the IDF issued a statement explaining
that it had:

identified suspicious movement along a route forbidden for
travel which had been used by Hezbollah to transport rockets and other
weaponry. Acting on suspicion that these were Hezbollah terrorists transporting
weaponry an aerial attack was carried out. Further inquiry into the incident
following information from UNIFIL has concluded that the movement was of a
convoy that had left Marja`youn earlier.[491]

The IDF response is inconsistent with the facts on the
ground. By its own admission, the IDF had received a request for the passage of
the convoy (although it denies giving authorization). Moreover, the IDF had an
obligation under the laws of war to do everything feasible to ensure that the
targets attacked were a military objective. The fact that IDF was on notice
that a large civilian convoy was heading north from Marja`youn, coupled with
the observation of such a large convoy, with many civilian cars flying white
flags and heading north, was a clear basis for canceling the attack.

Killing of Two Lebanese police and Five Lebanese Army Soldiers, Jamaliyeh Road
(Beka` Valley), August 14

A passenger van hit by an Israeli
airstrike near Jamaliyeh on August 14, 2006, killing two Lebanese policemen and
five Lebanese army officers.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

On the morning of August 14, just hours before a UN-imposed
ceasefire came into effect, a white civilian van left from the Beka` Valley
villages north of Baalbek, heading towards Beirut. Inside the van
were three Internal Security Services police officers, two civilians, and eight
members of the Lebanese Army. The police and army officers were all on their
way to their duty stations in Beirut.
One of the police officers, Rabi` `Abbas al-`Attar, 27, who was wounded in the
attack and lost his brother, `Ali `Abbas al-`Attar, 32, also a police officer,
explained to Human Rights Watch why they had decided to travel to work before
the formal ceasefire came into effect: "We were waiting for the ceasefire, but
we didn't hear any planes in the sky and we saw that people were moving
[driving] on the road, so we decided it was safe to move and go to work."[492]

-

The family of Lebanese police officer
`Ali `Abbas al-`Attar, one of two policemen and five Lebanese army officers
killed in an Israeli airstrike on a van leaving Jamaliyeh on August 14, 2006.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

As the van reached Jamaliyeh, just outside Baalbek, they found the road damaged by an
earlier Israeli air strike, and turned off on a little dirt road around the
destroyed section of roadway. At about 6:05 a.m., an Israeli drone fired one
missile into the van, killing seven persons inside: Hussain Qabbar, Lebanese
Army sergeant; Nabih Sallum, Lebanese Army sergeant; `Ali `Abbas al-`Attar,
Internal Security Force sergeant; Ibrahim Haidar, Lebanese Army; Rashid al-Mukdad,
Internal Security Force officer; Michel Abboud, Lebanese Army; and Hussain Nasr
al-Din, Lebanese Army. The missile wounded the other six persons in the van,
including the driver, Muhammad al-Helani, who lost a leg.[493]

Insofar as Israel
was a war with Lebanon,
Lebanese army soldiers are combatants under international humanitarian law.
However, because the Lebanese army did not take a direct part in the conflict
between Israel
and Hezbollah, any attack on them that caused harm to civilians or civilian objects
would almost necessarily be considered a disproportionate attack. Police
personnel are normally considered civilians, but if taking part in military
operations they can lose their civilian status.

C. Civilian Casualties During Attacks on Infrastructure

Israel
conducted numerous attacks against non-residential infrastructure during the
armed conflict, including commercial buildings, roads, and bridges. For
instance, Israel destroyed
an estimated 107 bridges and overpasses throughout Lebanon, justifying these attacks
as necessary to impede Hezbollah movement of personnel and rockets.[494] These
attacks killed and wounded numerous civilians.

Under international humanitarian law, civilian
infrastructure such as bridges are considered dual-use facilities-and can be
targeted-if they directly contribute to the war effort and their destruction
offers a concrete military advantage. Attacks on dual-use facilities are bound
by the same prohibitions on indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks as
attacks on purely military targets. Because dual-use facilities often have
significant civilian functions-an electrical plant may supply electricity to a
large population-there can be particular concern that their destruction will
cause harm to civilians far in excess to the anticipated military gain and thus
be disproportionate. And a warring party remains under an obligation to choose
means of attack that avoid or minimize damage to civilians.

Killing of Five Civilians, Borj al-Shemali, July 16

At noon on July 16, an Israeli air strike targeted an empty
building formerly used as a soap factory in Borj al-Shemali, located on the
outskirts of the southern port city of Tyre.
The massive explosion destroyed the building and struck several neighboring
homes, causing five civilian deaths in a home located just next to the factory.

Fifteen members of the Zayyat family were inside their
apartment next to the factory, watching television and sitting around talking.
"We were not too worried because the Israelis said they wouldn't target
civilians," one family member recalled. When the missile struck five meters
away from the home, the apartment of the Zayyat family collapsed: "Within a
second, everything in our apartment fell on our heads, we all ended up with
mostly head wounds. Five walls were just ripped away; the only things remaining
were the [reinforced] pillars."[495] The
attack killed five members of the family, all of them women or children: Rukaya
`Awada, 70, the matriarch of the family; her daughter Hanan Ramiz Zayyat, 45; her
daughter-in-law Hanan `Ali Zayyat, 33; her grandson Hadi Zayyat, 14; and her
granddaughter Reham Atwi, 10. Another daughter, Nouha Zayyat, 34, remained in a
coma with severe head wounds two months after the attack and was not expected
to recover when Human Rights Watch visited.[496]
Nine other family members were also seriously injured.

The Zayyat family is certain that the abandoned soap factory
was empty and that Hezbollah was not using it as a weapons storage facility:
"No one was storing weapons inside or even using the building," Haidar Zayyat
told Human Rights Watch, explaining that the factory had been empty for years
and that the family had not noticed any movement in or out of the building that
might have suggested it was used as a weapons storage facility. The family
blamed Israel's
use of extremely powerful weapons in a densely populated area for the deaths:
"They were targeting a soap factory that had not been operating for three
years. If they wanted to target the factory, they should have limited their
attack, because there were civilian homes nearby."[497]

Killing of One Civilian during Air Strike on al-GhaziyehBridge,
July 17

At about 9 a.m. on July 17, Israeli warplanes bombed the
al-Ghaziyeh highway bridge, located just south of Saida on the coastal highway.
The strike killed Zuheir Muhammad al-Baba, 58, a leatherworker and father of
five children. Zuheir had gone to Saida to ask his brothers for some money and
was on his way back to al-Ghaziyeh when the bridge was hit, burning him to
death in his car.[498] There
was no Hezbollah presence on or near the bridge, so the bridge itself was the
probable target of the attack. He was buried as a civilian in Saida.

Killing of Twelve Civilians during Attack on RmeilehBridge,
July 18

On July 18, Israeli air strikes destroyed the RmeilehBridge, located on the main coastal
highway about four kilometers north of Saida. The air strike also hit a van and
a Mercedes whose passengers were trying to flee to safety in Beirut, killing all 12 passengers in the
cars. Nine civilians from Deir Qanoun al-Nahr died in the van: Mustafa `Ez
al-Din, 48, a real estate salesman, his wife Ibtisam Zalzali, 43, and their two
children, Ibrahim, 14, and Musa, 12; Abdullah Hariri, in his forties; Deebe
Zalzali, 38, and her two children Muhammad and Darin, ages unknown; and Kifah
`Aseileh, in his forties. Three civilians also died in the Mercedes, but their
names and ages are unknown to Human Rights Watch.[499]
According to their relatives, all of those who died in the van were civilians,
and are buried as civilians, not Hezbollah "martyrs."[500]

Following the strike, the bodies from the van were taken to
the Southern Medical Center in Saida. Based on the appearance of the
bodies-blackened corpses with hair and skin intact-a Belgian-Lebanese doctor,
Bachir Cham, accused Israel
of having used chemical weapons, saying that the victims were "black as shoes,
so [Israel]
definitely is using chemical weapons."[501]
Lebanese Health Minister Muhammad Khalifa later confirmed that the Lebanese
authorities had sent samples from the bodies to foreign laboratories for
testing.[502] The
tests came back inconclusive. However, there is almost no chance that a
chemical weapon would have been used in the particular attack that killed the
12 victims at Rmeileh bridge. The target of the attack was a reinforced
concrete bridge, and chemical weapons are useless against such a target.

Killing of 11 Civilians during Attack on al-HayssaBridge (northern Lebanon), August 11

On the early morning of August 11, Israeli warplanes launched
a number of attacks against bridges and roads in northern Lebanon, attempting to cut the roads between Syria and Lebanon
(they had cut roads and bridges leading to Syria
from the Beka` Valley earlier in the conflict, leaving only the access roads to
Syria through northern Lebanon).

At about 4:40 a.m., an Israeli warplane fired a missile at
the al-Hayssa bridge, located in northern Lebanon on the `Akkar highway
leading to the Syrian borderpost at al-Abboudiye. The bomb destroyed the
bridge, but sprayed shrapnel throughout the small village of al-Hayssa,
wounding a number of people. Many villagers, awakened by the explosion, rushed
to the area of the destroyed bridge after hearing screaming from wounded
persons in nearby homes.

Ten minutes after the initial attack, at about 4:50 a.m.,
the Israeli warplane returned and carried out a second raid on the bridge.
Mehsin Yasin Ma`la, 42, whose son died in the attack, recalled to Human Rights
Watch what happened:

My family used to sleep outside during the war because we
were afraid of the missiles . At 4:40 a.m., while I was rolling a cigarette,
the first missile fell. Shrapnel flew all over the place, injuring my sons and
daughters, and the women and children started to cry.

We heard a lot of screaming coming from the bridge, so we
ran to help those who were screaming. Between the first and second missile were
10 minutes. By the time we got there, we didn't hear the missile or the
airplane. The pressure of the blast just threw me and my son one or two meters
up in the air. We were both injured, and I was asking my son, 'Where is your
brother?' When we got away from the bridge, my son found his brother dead, with
his arm and head broken. He covered his face and then we were taken to the
hospital.[503]

The air strike was evidently aimed at the bridge, not at any
Hezbollah presence in the village (which is composed of Sunnis and followers of
the minority `Alawite interpretation of Shi`a Islam). The second strike on the
bridge raises concerns that the IDF should have anticipated that, after the
first strike, civilians would have rushed to the bridge to assist the wounded.
By attacking again almost immediately, the IDF failed to take all feasible
precautions to minimize civilian casualties.

D. Deaths
from Artillery Strikes

Human Rights Watch did not fully investigate the use of
artillery by the IDF in the 2006 conflict. However, almost everywhere Human
Rights Watch researchers traveled in southern Lebanon, evidence of artillery
strikes was visible on roads, fields, orchards, and inside villages themselves.
Almost every house in many villages within artillery range of Israel (or Israeli positions inside Lebanon)
bore evidence of artillery strikes on its exterior walls. While civilian
casualties from shelling appears to have been far less than from air attacks,
we examined a number of such cases.

Killing of Two Children, Rmeish, July 19

During the conflict, many residents from Shi`a border
villages fled to neighboring, non-Shi`a villages. In the case of the village of
`Aita al-Sha`ab-the Lebanese village closest to the place where Hezbollah
captured the two IDF soldiers, and the scene of some of the fiercest
fighting-many of the civilians fled immediately to nearby Rmeish, a
predominantly Christian village.

The Christian Salem family had 26 displaced persons from
`Aita al-Sha`ab staying at their home in Rmeish, in addition to the six members
of the Salem
family itself. Their neighbors had a similar number of displaced persons, all
of them civilians from `Aita al-Sha`ab, the vast majority women and children.[505]

At 1 a.m. on July 19, the neighborhood of Rmeish in which
they lived, near the center of the village, came under intensive Israeli
shelling. At least six 155mm artillery shells hit the Salem house, and four penetrated inside the
room where the children of the displaced people were sleeping. Two siblings
were killed by the explosions: Zainab Salah Jawad, 7, and her brother Qawsar
Salah Jawad, 4.

According to the Christian owner of the house, there were no
Hezbollah members inside the home, and the neighborhood was a Christian one
that did not support Hezbollah.[506] While
the Salem
family did not notice any firing from around their part of the village, they
told us that some villagers had told them that "something was fired from the
neighborhood" but Human Rights Watch was unable to confirm this.[507]

Killing of Two Civilians in `Aitaroun, July 21

In many villages in southern Lebanon, elderly persons often
remained behind during the war, in part because they were unable to move
easily, or they preferred risking death in their homes to the humiliations of
being displaced. In one such case in `Aitaroun, five elderly persons ended up
remaining: Maryam Muhammad Tawbe, 70; her 98-year-old blind mother, `Aliyeh
Mustafa; her nieces Maryam Mustafa Tawbe, 65 and Atife Tawbe, in her fifties;
and her uncle `Ali Tawbe, 85.

At about 7 p.m. on July 21, the house they were sheltering
in came under a heavy barrage of Israeli 155mm artillery shells, which exploded
against the wall of the house as well as in the garden surrounding it. The legs
of Maryam Mustafa Tawbe, 65, were sheared off by shrapnel, and she bled to
death immediately after the attack. Shrapnel also hit `Ali Tawbe, 85, in the
chest; he survived only until the next morning. Atife Tawbe and Maryam Muhammad
Tawbe received serious shrapnel wounds to their legs, but survived without any
access to medical treatment until after the end of the fighting. For the next
eight days, the three surviving women lived with the decomposing bodies of
their two relatives, unable to leave the home because of the heavy shelling and
bombardment of the town, until help was able to reach them during the 48-hour
ceasefire.[508]
According to the survivors, there was no Hezbollah presence in the home when it
was shelled.[509]

Killing of One Civilian, Yatar, July 26

Abdullah Qaik, 82, was unable to flee his native village of Yatar because he had been bedridden and
unable to walk since a fall one year earlier. During the war, his wife remained
in the village to look after him, but spent most of her time in a safer shelter
located some 200 meters from their house. On July 26, she left her husband at 3
p.m. When she returned an hour later, an artillery shell had exploded close to
the house, and her husband had bled to death from shrapnel and broken glass
wounds to his legs from the explosion. He was buried as a civilian.

According to the wife, there were no Hezbollah fighters in
the shelter or near her home, but she had seen Hezbollah fighters inside the
village: "The shabab [Hezbollah
fighters, literally "the youth"] would sit on the verandas of certain houses.
They also stayed in two or three houses in the village where they slept. They
came and took the radio from our house during the war."[510]
The mixing of Hezbollah fighters with the civilian population clearly
endangered the civilian population of the village, and may have contributed to
the artillery strike that killed Abdullah Qaik.

Killing of One Civilian, Arzun, July 29

On July 29, heavy Israeli artillery shelling hit the village of Arzun,
located about nine kilometers east of the coastal city of Tyre. Artillery shells fell all over the
village in an indiscriminate nature, according to one of the villagers, "There
was no military objective [in the shelling.] The whole village was being struck
indiscriminately."[511]

At about 11 a.m., one of the shells hit the home of
82-year-old Ibrahim `Abdo Turmus, who was bedridden and unable to flee during
the war, killing him instantly. The same shell also injured his son Hassib
Turmus, 36, and `Ali Mughniyyeh, 22, a neighbor, who had come to the house to
look after and feed Ibrahim Turmus.[512]

Hezbollah fighters were present in the village during the
attack, and had taken over a school building in the village.[513] Neither
Ibrahim nor his son and neighbor were affiliated with Hezbollah but were
instead civilian supporters of Amal.

The IDF did not issue a statement on this attack.

E.
Shooting Deaths by IDF Ground Forces

IDF military operations in Lebanon were not limited to
artillery, air, and naval bombardment. From the early days of the conflict,
Israeli commandos and ground forces operated on Lebanese territory, confronting
Hezbollah fighters on the ground in Lebanon
and attempting to seize control of a significant number of villages and towns
in southern and south-eastern Lebanon.

Human Rights Watch research established that the ground
fighting, not the bombardment, in Lebanon was the deadliest part of
the conflict for both Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters. At least 104 of
the total 119 Israeli soldiers killed in the conflict died in ground combat
inside Lebanon.
Similarly, Human Rights Watch research found that the vast majority of
Hezbollah fighters killed in the conflict were killed either in firefights with
Israeli ground forces, or by close air support (mostly Israeli drones and
helicopers) accompanying Israeli ground forces.

Despite the weeks of fierce ground combat, Israeli forces
gained only a precarious foothold in Lebanon. In the border regions of Maroon
al-Ras, Bint Jbeil, and `Aita al- Sha`ab, Israeli forces failed to gain
effective control despite weeks of fighting and massive destruction of those
border villages.

In the course of its research, Human Rights Watch regularly
encountered evidence that Israeli soldiers had used, and often vandalized,
civilian homes in the villages and towns they fought in. Human Rights Watch
found homes that Israeli soldiers had temporarily occupied, as evidenced by the
presence of discarded Hebrew food packages and Israeli military supplies, in
`Ainata, Hadatha, Haris, `Aita al-Sha`ab, and Taibe. Such use is not improper
under humanitarian law. However, the owners of homes occupied by Israeli
soldiers during the conflict often complained of vandalism, offensive grafitti,
and wanton destruction carried out by the Israeli soldiers. Visits by Human
Rights Watch to a number of these homes confirmed this. Humanitarian law
prohibits destruction of private property, except when required by imperative
military necessity, and pillage.[514]

On at least two occasions, Israeli ground troops appear to
have unlawfully shot and killed Lebanese civilians. In each case, the Israeli
soldiers implicated in the killing were not engaged in hostilities at the time,
should have been able to identify the Lebanese they shot as civilians, and
faced no apparent threat from those individuals.

Shooting of One Civilian, `Ainata, July 27

During late July, Israeli soldiers took up a position in the
home of `Abbas Khanafer in `Ainata, located near the Israeli border between the
villages of `Aitaroun and Bint Jbeil, and based themselves on the upper floors
of the three-story building. `Abbas Khanafer's mother, Badriyyat Khanafer, and
his two sisters, Maryam and Taghrid Khanafer, remained in a neighboring
building that also belonged to the family, but the men of the family decided to
move out of the area, afraid the Israeli soldiers would mistake them for
Hezbollah fighters. According to Badriyyat Khanafer and her daughter Taghrid,
the Israeli soldiers knew that there was a group of women living in the
building next door (about twenty meters of gardens and fields separate the two
homes), as the women would start screaming whenever the Israeli soldiers opened
fire on targets.[515]

On July 27, at about 10 a.m., 65-year-old Badriyyat and her
daughters had gone to the basement of the home occupied by the Israeli soldiers
to fetch some cooking materials, and had returned to the next-door home without
problem. They did not know that Israeli soldiers had taken refuge in the house.
In the early afternoon, Maryam Khanafer, 36, decided to return again to the
basement and first floor of the Israeli-occupied home to fetch her one-year-old
daughter's portable toilet. Her mother explained to Human Rights Watch, "I told
her not to go, but she said, 'My daughter is dying to go to the bathroom,' and
said she'd be right back."[516] Maryam
wrapped a white sheet around her to indicate her civilian status and left.

Maryam Khanafer made it safely into the home and found her
daughter's toilet. On her way back, in the middle of the open garden and field
separating the two homes, the Israeli soldiers fired at least three bullets at
her from the upper floors of the building, killing her instantly. Her mother
recalled:

I was in the house when they shot her. After the first
bullet, I started screaming . I heard them [the Israeli soldiers] shout in
Arabic, Idrizz `al-wati [a popular
Arabic expression, literally meaning "fire low," but more accurately translated
as "fire frequently"] Then they shot at our house, but we were not injured . I
pulled her from the garden to the entrance of our house. I went by myself; my
older daughter refused to go. When I was pulling her, they were still firing.
There was blood on my head; there was so much blood everywhere. I called my
older daughter to help once I brought Maryam['s body] back.[517]

Maryam's body remained at the entrance of the home until the
Red Cross came to collect it several days after her death.

The apartment occupied by the Israeli soldiers had been
partially cleaned and repaired by the time of Human Rights Watch's
investigation of the incident, but the refuse left behind by the Israeli
soldiers outside the home-large amounts of Hebrew-language food containers,
Israeli army supplies, and cigarettes-left no doubt that Israeli soldiers had
been inside the building for an extended period.

The available evidence suggests the shooting of Maryam
Khanafer was a deliberate and unlawful killing of a civilian. Israeli soldiers
shot Maryam Khanafer from a relatively close distance from which they should
have easily identified her as a civilian, wrapped in a white sheet, and
carrying a child's portable toilet. While it is unclear whether there were any
attacks on the IDF position in the `Ainata home prior to the shooting, there
was no hostile fire at the time of the attack. The IDF has not commented on
this case. The troubling circumstances of this case require a full and
impartial investigation, and those responsible for the killing should be held
accountable for their actions.

Shooting of Four Civilians, Taibe, August 6

Four members of the Nasrallah family-Ahmad `Ali Nasrallah,
81; his wife Muhsina `Ali Jumaa, 83; their son Hussain Ahmad Nasrallah, 54; and
their daughter Nazha Ahmad Nasrallah, 58-had moved to the basement shelter of
their neighbor Said Hussain Nehle, 76, in the town of Taibe, located near the
Israeli border some 40 kilometers east of Tyre.They remained there for about
one week until they decided to go check on their home and bake some bread to
eat on the morning of August 6. (The Nasrallahs have no relation to the
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah is a common family name in Lebanon).

According to Nehle, there was still heavy artillery and missile
fire taking place around Taibe when Muhsina and Nazha left to go check on their
home, located about 100 meters away from Nehle's home, at about 11 a.m. When
the two didn't return by noon, Ahmad asked Hussain to go check on them. At
about 12:30 p.m., when none of them had returned, Ahmad himself left his
neighbors home to go find out what happened: "Ahmad put on his hat and left,
about half an hour after his son left," Nehle recalled to Human Rights Watch.[518]

None of his neighbors returned that day, and Nehle spent the
evening alone in his basement. The next morning, when the bombardment briefly
eased, Nehle decided to go to the Nasrallah's home to see what was happening.
He described to Human Rights Watch what he saw:

When the bombing calmed down, I went to their house and
found them dead. I saw their bodies near the entrance of the house, just three
meters away from the house. The mother and the son were next to each other. I
couldn't see the father and the daughter at first. I walked a bit further and found
the father. His daughter had reached the patio. The father's body was mutilated
and there was a lot of blood. They had been shot from inside the house, and
from an adjacent apartment. When I reached them, I heard someone speaking
Arabic in a Druze accent. He told me to shut up and leave. I couldn't see the
person who was speaking, or those inside [the house], but they were inside.[519]

According to Nehle and a surviving son of the family, they
found Nazha on the patio at the top of the stairs; Muhsina and Hussain at the
bottom of the stairs; and Hassan in the garden just to the right of the patio,
probably fallen there by the force of the explosion that killed him.[520]

Human Rights Watch conducted a detailed inspection of the
home. The property consists of a large home, with an attached smaller adjacent
apartment on the left front side. In front and on the right side of the large
home there is a wrap-around patio that extends to the adjacent apartment, and
is reached by stairs on the right side. Human Rights Watch found evidence that
Israeli forces had occupied the house and adjacent apartment; they had left
behind a large amount of IDF army provisions and Hebrew-language food
containers and cigarettes, as well as Israeli bullet and grenade cartridges
with Hebrew markings. They had also damaged much of the furniture in the house,
and used it to fortify their position.

The forensic evidence examined by Human Rights Watch at the
scene suggests that the Israeli soldiers shot the four members of the Nasrallah
family from positions inside the small apartment adjacent to the main house.
All of the bullet and grenade impact rounds were located on the wall of the
front of the main house, along the patio, and the empty bullet casings were
located by the windows of the small apartment, indicating that the bullets were
fired from inside the small apartment in the direction of the family members on
the patio and the steps.

The empty bullet and grenades found at the scene were all
Israeli-manufactured. Human Rights Watch found an impact crater caused by a
40mm grenade round fired by the M203 grenade launcher that attaches to the
standard M16 assault rifle, which probably caused the mutilation injuries to
the body of Ahmad, as well as several empty 40mm grenade cartridges with Hebrew
markings. The bullets found at the scene were all standard 5.56mm ammunition
for the M16 rifle, and 7.62mm bullets for the heavier Negev SAW rifle.

Significantly, Human Rights Watch found no evidence that the
Israeli soldiers had ever been attacked during their occupation of the
Nasrallah home. The only bullet scars on the building were focused around the
immediate area where the family died, and there was not a single bullet scar on
any other part of the building indicating incoming fire. A careful search of
the property did not locate any evidence of an attack on the building, either
during the time the family returned or at any other time.

The casing of an Israeli-manufactured
40mm grenade found at the Nasrallah home in Taibe, where Israeli soldiers shot
dead four elderly members of the Nasrallah family, all of them civilians.
2006 Peter Bouckaert/Human Rights
Watch

-

Discarded Israeli-manufactured bullet
cartridges and 40mm grenade casings found by Human Rights Watch at the
Nasrallah home in Taibe, where Israeli soldiers shot dead four elderly members
of the Nasrallah family, all of them civilians.

2006 Peter
Bouckaert/Human Rights Watch

The investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch strongly
suggests that the shooting deaths of the family members were unjustified and
unlawful. From the close distance at which the Israeli soldiers shot the four
civilians dead-less than five meters-it must have been clear to them that they
were shooting at elderly civilians, not combatants. All four of the victims
were unarmed, and there is no evidence of an attack on the Israeli soldiers.
The troubling facts of this shooting incident demand an independent and
impartial investigation of the soldiers involved, and accountability for those
responsible.

Acknowledgements

This report is based on investigations carried out by Human
Rights Watch researchers throughout the conflict (July 12-August 14, 2006), as
well as in the months after the conflict (August-December 2006).The research was conducted by Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human
Rights Watch, Nadim Houry, Lebanon and Syria
researcher in the Middle East and North Africa
(MENA) division of Human Rights Watch, and Wissam Al Saliby, consultant to
Human Rights Watch. The report was written by Peter
Bouckaert and Nadim Houry. Additional research was
contributed by Lucy Mair, researcher
for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in MENA; Jonathan Fox,
consultant to Human Rights Watch; Eric Goldstein, research director in MENA; Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst in the
emergencies program; and Leeam Azulay-Yagev,
associate in the program office of Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch would like to thank the eyewitnesses and
victims of the attacks documented in this report who agreed to be interviewed
at great length. Many of them lost relatives and neighbors during the war and
experienced the destruction of their own homes. Despite their hardships, these
men and women patiently answered our difficult questions. Their cooperation is
deeply appreciated.

Appendix I

List of
Attacks Investigated

Date

Time

Place

GPS

Names
of Dead

Mode
of Attack

1.

July 13

03:50

Baflay

Lat N 33 15' 25.42"

Lon E 35 22' 01.65"

1. Munir `Ali
Zain, 47

2. Najla Houdruj Zain, 42

3. `Ali
Munir Zain, 19 (army soldier)

4. Wala Munir Zain, 18

5. Hassan Munir Zain, 13

6. Fatima Munir Zain, 7

7. Hussain
Munir Zain, 4

8. Haidar
bin Nahi, 40, Kuwaiti, husband of Hurriya Munir Zain

9.
Abdullah bin Nahi, 70, Kuwaiti, father of Haidar.

10. Sri
Lankan maid, name unknown

Airplane
strike on house

2.

July 13

03:50

Srifa

Lat N 33
16' 33.41"

Lon E 35
24' 04.66"

1. `Akil
Bahij Mer`i, 34, Brazilian national

2. Ahlam
Amin Jaber, 25

3. Fatima
Zahra `Akil Mer`i, 4

4. `Abd
al-Hadi `Akil Mer`i, 9

Airplane
strike on house, right after `Akil Mer`i returned home.

3.

July 13

03:50

al-Shehabiyye

Not
available

No Fatalities

Wounded

1.
Muhammad Mahmud Baydun, 17

2. Samih
Mahmud Baydun, 20

3. Ahmad
Mahmud Baydun, 20

Airplane
strike on house of Hezbollah member Mahmud Baydun

4.

July 13

04:00

Dweir

Lat N 33 22' 39.40"

Lon E 35 24' 52.41"

1. `Adil
Muhammad Akash

2. Rabab
Yasin, 39

3.
Muhammad Bakar Akash, 18

4.
Muhammad Hassan Akash, 7

5. Fatima
Akash, 17

6. `Ali
Rida Akash, 12

7. Ghadir
Akash, 10

8. Zainab
Akash, 13

9. Sara
Akash, 5

10. Batul
Akash, 4

11. Nur
al-Huda Akash, 2

12. Safa'
Akash, 2 months

13. Sir
Lankan maid, name unknown

Airplane
strike on house

5.

July 13

04:00

Shhour

Lat N 33
17' 48.21"

Lon E 35
22' 35.46"

1. Khadije
`Ali Khashab, 48

2. `Ali
Amid Khashab, 73

3. Mustafa
`Ali Khashab, 43

4. Najwa
`Ali al-Medani, 37

5. Yasmin
Mustafa Khashab, 14

6. Sara
Ahmad Yasin, 16

Airplane
strike on house

6.

July 13

04:00

Bar`ashit

Lat N 33
10' 37.56"

Lon E 35
26' 29.27"

1. Najib
Hussain Farhat, 54

2. Zainab
Najib Farhat, 16

Airplane
strike on house, Hezb weapons store in neighboring house

7.

July 13

08:20

Zebqine

Lat N 33 09' 53.92"

Lon E 35 16' 02.05"

1. Fatima
Bzeih, 78

2. Taniya
Bzeih, 64

3. Maryam
al-Hussaini, 54

4. Su`ad
Nasur Bzeih, 39

5. Amal
Na`im Bzeih, 44

6. Na`im
Wa'el Bzeih, 18

7. Kholud
Muhammad Bzeih, 18

8. Farah
Muhammad Bzeih, 14

9. `Aziza
Muhammad Bzeih, 11

10. Malek
`Ali Bzeih, 17

11.
Muhammad `Ali Bzeih, 17 (twin of Malek)

12.
Hussain `Ali Bzeih, 12

Airplane
strike on house

8.

July 13

15:00

Yatar

Lat N 33 09' 16.73"

Lon E 35 19' 54.69"

1. Arwa
Jamil Suidan, 58

2. `Ali Muhammad
Akil, 25 (buried with Hezbollah insignia, but witnesses said he was just a
member and not a fighter)

Airplane
strike on home, located close to home of Hezbollah leader Amin Khalifa.

75.

Aug 7

10:00

Houla

Lat N 33 12' 30.30"

Lon E 35 30' 51.65"

1. Hassan
`Ali al-Hajj, 65-70

Airplane
strikes (6 raids) on neighborhood

76.

Aug 7

19:30
20:00

Brital,
Beka`

Not
available

1. `Abbas
Hassan Toufic Saleh, 18

2. `Abbas
`Ali Hussain Tlays, 20

3. `Abbas
Khodr Sawan, 17

4.
Muhammad Sulaiman al-Ajami, 16

5.
Ghazalah Khodr Sawan, 17 (twin of `Abbas)

6. Hawra
Hussain al-Ajami, 12

7. Hamda
Maflah Ismail, 29

8. Fatima `Ali `Abbas Mazloum, 17 (pregnant)

9. Qassim
Muhammad `Abbas Saleh, 63 (Mukhtar)

Airplane
strike on butcher shop

77.

Aug 7

20:10

Chiah,
Dahieh, Beirut

Not
available

1.
Ghazaleh Hussain `Awada Nasser al-Din, age not available

2. Ahmad
Hassan Kanj, 14

3. Rida
Nimer Nasser al-Din, age not available

4. Fatima
Ahmad Wehbi, 22

5.
Muhammad Fadi Wehbi, 2

6.
Muhammad Abdullah Taha, 31

7.
Abdullah Muhammad Taha, 1

8. Jamil
Hussain Rmeity, 60

9. Mustafa
Hussain Rmeity, 45

10.
Muhammad `Ali Rmeity, 21

11. Na`im
Mer`i Rmeity, 68

12. `Ali Na`im Rmeity, 30

13. Riham
`Ali Rmeity, 4

14.
Sa`adiyya Hussain Rmeity, 55

15.
Ibtisam Hussain Rmeity, 41

16. Maryam
Hussain Rmeity, 43

17. Malak
`Ali Rmeity, 14

18. Fatima
`Ali Rmeity, 18

19. Fatima
Mustafa Youniss, 80

20. Sobhia
Kamel Bilun, 43

21.
Kawthar Jamal Rmeity, 20

22.
Hussain `Ali Erra'i, 16

23. Zahra
Mahmud al-Abdallah, F, 1

24. Zainab
Mahmud al-Abdallah, 5

25. Fatima
`Abbas Shehade, 30

26. `Ali
Ahmad Mohsen, age not available

27.
Hussain Ahmad Mohsen, age not available

28. Dalal
Muhammad She'aito, age not available

29. Hana
Ibrahim Hatoun Nasser Al-Din, age not available

30. Salwa
Khalil Niser, age not available

31. Wa`ed
`Ali Wehbi, age not available

32.
Hussain `Ali Wehbi, age not
available

33. `Ali
Ibrahim Wehbi, age not available

34. Hassan
`Ali Wehbi, age not available

35. Suzanna
Taha, age not available

36. Racha
`Ali `Abbas, age not available

37.
Hussain `Ali `Abbas, age not
available

38.
Suzanne Abdallah `Abbas, age not available

39. Maya
Said Yatim Rmeity,26

Airplane
strike on apartment building.

78.

Aug 8

10:00

Majdel Selem

None

1. Ahmad
Nimer Rahal, 66

2.
Hassan Fares Melhem "Siraj", 27, Hezbollah combatant

Airstrike
on home while being visited by Hezbollahfighter

79.

Aug 8

15:00

al-Ghaziyeh

Not
available

1. Malika
`Ali Jubaili, 2

Drone or
helicopter strike during funeral for other victims of al-Ghaziyeh

80.

Aug 8

15:00

al-Ghaziyeh

Not
available

1.
Mahmud Ahmad Khalifa "Fazim," Hezbollah member, 38

2. Ibtisam
Mahmud Dawood, 30

3. Hussain
Mahmud Khalifa, 10

4. Ahmad
Mahmud Khalifa, 2

5. Fatima
Mahmud Khalifa, 5

6. Mahmud
al-Dabul, 75 (father of Ibtisam, buried in `Ainata)

7. Abdi
Muhammad Nasrallah, 70 (mother of Ibtisam, buried in `Ainata)

Airplane
strike on house.Mahmud Khalifa was a
former Hezbollah fighter, but had not been called up and was keeping his
pharmacy open-if he had been active in fighting, he would not have stayed
with his family.

81.

Aug 8

16:00

al-Ghaziyeh

Lat N 33 30' 51.52"

Lon E 35 21' 53.81"

1. Ahmad
Muhammad Khalifa, 67, Australian-Leb

2. Ibtisam
Muhammad al-Areibeh, 51

Airplane
strike on house, brother of Hezbollah leader Amin Khalifa

82.

Aug 9

02:00

Masghara,

Beka`

Lat N 33 31' 47.97"

Lon E 35 39' 12.94"

1. Muhammad
Deeb Sader, 43, French Lebanese.*

2. Zainab
Hassan Sader, 71

3. Hassan Ahmad
Sader, 47

4. Zainab
Faisal Amin Said, 39,

5. `Ali Ahmad
Sader, 38

6. Nadia As`ad
Qassim, 35 (pregnant)

7. Fatima
Hassan Sader, 70

Airplane
strike on home.

* Muhammad
Deeb Sader buried as Hezbollah members but without the military honors give
to Hezbollah combatants

83.

Aug 10

Unknown

Rabb al-
Talatine

Lat N 33 15' 04.23"

Lon E 35 31' 10.73"

1. Fatima
Muhammad Barakat, 21

2. Khadija
Hussain Barakat, 66

3. Amsha
Hussain Hammud, 84

4. Naife
Abdullah Barakat, 81

Airplane
strike on house

84.

Aug 11

04:40

al-Hayssa

Lat N 34
35' 48.03"

Lon E 36
03' 45.74"

1. `Ali
Muhammad Mehsin, 45

2. `Abd
al-Karim `Ali Melhim, 48

3. `Ali
Muhammad Melhim, 32 (member of Internal Security Forces)

4. Fadi
Muhammad Melhim, 25

5. `Ali
Mehsin Melhim, 19

6. `Ali Muhammad Akumi, 25

7. Rashid Mahmud Hassan, 50

8. `Ali Hassan Mamma, 40

9. Ma`la Mehsin al-Yassini, 16

10. `Ali
`Abud Jrayssy, 36

11. `Ali
Sulaiman Ma`la, 42

Airplane
strike on bridge-the people were killed during a 2nd strike 10
minutes later, when they were helping the wounded.

Appendix III

Human Rights
Watch Letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz

January 8, 2007

Defense Minister Amir Peretz

Defense Ministry

37 Kaplan St.

Tel Aviv 61909

Israel

VIA FACSIMILE: +972-3-697-6218

Dear Defense Minister Peretz,

I am writing to request detailed information from the
Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) about its targeting and weapons selection, vetting
review procedures, precautions taken by the IDF to prevent civilian casualties
during strikes on pre-selected or emerging targets, and any post-strike battle
damage assessment (BDA) procedures carried out by the IDF during the recent
conflict with Hezbollah.

Human Rights Watch is an independent and impartial
international human rights organization. Our specialized personnel-including
military, arms, and BDA experts-have long-standing expertise in evaluating the
conduct of military campaigns, including air wars. Human Rights Watch
researchers carried out extensive studies of the air campaigns in Yugoslavia
(published as Civilian Deaths in the Nato
Air Campaign) and Iraq (published as Off
Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties), among others. Our
analysis has served as an independent and impartial review of the conduct of
air campaigns, and has led to important advances to protect the civilian
population, such as the decision by the U.S.-led coalition forces not to target
electrical generation facilities during the 2003 war in Iraq.

Human Rights Watch is carrying out an analysis of the July-August
2006 conflict between Israel
and Hezbollah. To supplement the reports already issued, we plan to complete a
comprehensive report on the conflict in early 2007.

The information we seek from the IDF will be a very
important element in our analysis of Israel's conduct. While Human
Rights Watch can investigate
civilian casualties or destruction of civilian infrastructure and the presence
of military targets at the site of civilian casualties or infrastructure on the
ground in Lebanon, only IDF officials can explain exactly what military target
they were attempting to hit during a particular strike, and any precautions
taken to prevent civilian casualties during that strike.

Reproduced below is a list of 97 incidents involving
civilian casualties and civilian infrastructure that we have investigated in Lebanon.
The information listed below, based on our field investigation of the sites and
witness testimonies, includes the date and time of the strike, the method of
attack, the village where the attack took place, and the death toll. Because
place names often vary, our researchers also took the GPS coordinates of
individual strikes, which should allow the IDF to coordinate this information
with its strike logs and establish the specific military target attacked.

For each of the 97 incidents listed below, we would like to
request the following information from the IDF:

1) The specific military objective of the attack (Hezbollah
personnel, weapon storage site, rocket launching position etc.), and the target
selection and review process.

2) Any specific precautions taken to ensure that the object
of the attack was a military object and to avoid collateral and/or
disproportionate civilian casualties.

4) Any specific post-strike battle damage assessment
undertaken to review the results of the particular strike, and the results of
that BDA.

Human Rights Watch will reflect any relevant portion of the
IDF's response in our upcoming report, as we have done with responses from
military officials in prior reports assessing wartime conduct around the world.

Our experience at Human Rights Watch has taught us that
usually, the most productive way to review the conduct of a war and to obtain
future improvement in that conduct is through direct dialogue with military
officials. Our extensive dialogue with US, UK,
and NATO officials helped improve our understanding of the Iraq and Kosovo conflicts. Human Rights
Watch hopes to establish a similar dialogue with IDF operational officials, and
we are prepared to discuss our findings with, and obtain information from, the
relevant Israeli operational or military officials in meetings in Israel, if
that is most convenient to you..

As Human Rights Watch
hopes to publish its findings in early 2007, a timely reply by January 20, 2007
to this request is appreciated.

Human Rights Watch realizes that it will require a
significant commitment from the IDF to review its files for the information we
have requested, but we feel that the effort will be a crucial contribution to a
realistic understanding of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

23.July 18 00:45hrs air strike on home in
Aitaroun, killing 9 members of Awada family

Lat N 33 07' 06.79"

Lon E 35 28' 13.38"

24.July 18 09:00hrs air strike on home in
Taloussa, killing 3 members of Turmus family

Lat N 33 13' 58.07"

Lon E 35 29' 08.56"

25.July 18 16:00hrs air strike on home in
Yatar, killing disabled man from Slim family

No
GPS coordinates available

26.July 18 (time unknown) air strikes on
Lebanese Army base in Jamhour (in Mount Lebanon, east of Beirut), killing 11
Lebanese army soldiers.

No
GPS coordinates available

27.July 19 02:00hrs simultaneous air strike
on 2 separate homes in Silaa village, killing 8 members of Ayyoub family

Lat N 33 15' 18.72"

Lon E 35 22' 48.67"

28.July 19 03:30hrs air strikes on the "Moscow" neighborhood of
Srifa, followed by drone strikes, killing 22 persons

Lat N 33 16' 56.63"

Lon E 35 23' 55.40"

29.July 19 07:10hrs air strike on home in
Nabi Sheet, killing 7 members of the Shukr family

Lat N 33 52' 29.59"

Lon E 36 06' 56.11"

30.July 19 12:37hrs air strikes on factory in Ta`nayel village in
Bekaa.

No
GPS coordinates available.

31.July 19 13:00hrs air strike on home in
Ainata, killing 4 members of Darwish family

Lat N 33 07' 40.90"

Lon E 35 26' 43.60"

32.July 21 05:35hrs air strike on home in
Nabi Sheet, killing 1 member of Shukr family whose son was an official in the
Lebanese Ba'ath party

Lat N 33 52' 26.74"

Lon E 36 06' 50.25"

33.July 21 14:00hrs air strike on home in
Ait ech Chaab, killing 3 members of Rida family

No
GPS coordinates available

34.July 21 (time unknown) air strike on home
in Zebqine, killing 3 members of Bzeih family, including head of Zebqine
municipality, Ahmed Bzeih

No
GPS coordinates available

35.July 23 05:00hrs air strikes on large factory in Ta`nayel
village, Bekaa.

No
GPS coordinates available

36.July 23 11:00hrs air strike on empty home
in Shehin village, causing 2 deaths from Ghaith family in neighboring home

Lat N 33 07' 33.06"

Lon E 35 15' 19.82"

37.July 23 16:15hrs air strike on home in
Yaroun, killing 5 members of Farhat family

Lat N 33 04' 52.63"

Lon E 35 25' 23.62"

38.July 23 (time unknown) air strike on
factory in town of al-Manara (sometimes referred to as al-Hamara) in Southern Bekaa, near Hasbaya.

No
GPS coordinates available.

39.July 24 05:45hrs air strikes on several
adjoining homes in center of al-Hallousiye, resulting in the deaths of 11
persons, most from Hamid and Mounis families

Lat N 33 18' 21.27"

Lon E 35 19' 42.09"

40.July 24 17:00hrs air strike on home in Haris, resulting in
death of four persons

Lat N 33 10' 42.73"

Lon E 35 22' 35.63"

41.July 24 17:00hrs air strike (simultaneous
with previous strike) in Haris, resulting in deaths of 8 members of Jawad
family

Lat N 33 10' 46.02"

Lon E 35 22' 40.63"

42.July 24 (time unknown) air strike on home
in center of Ainata, killing 17 persons

Lat N 33 07' 43.69"

Lon E 35 26' 25.11"

43.
July 24 (time unknown) air strike on
home in Safad al-Batikh, killing one person

No
GPS coordinates available

44.July 25 19:30hrs precision-guided missile
strike on UNOGL post in Khiam, resulting in the death of 4 UNTSO observers

No
GPS coordinates available

45.July 26 15:00hrs air strike on home in Yatar, killing 1 person

No
GPS coordinates available

46.July 26 16:00hrs air strike on home in Kafra, killing 2
persons

No
GPS coordinates available

47.July 27 15:30hrs air strike on home next
to abandoned women's husseiniya in Hadatha, killing 6 elderly persons

Lat N 33 09' 56.83"

Lon E 35 23' 21.48"

48.July 29 14:30hrs air strike on home in
el-Numeiriya village, killing 6 persons of Harake and Mehdi families.

Lat N 33 24' 39.04"

Lon E 35 25' 08.85"

49.
July 30 01:00hrs air strike (2
missiles) on home in Qana, killing 27 persons from Hashem and Shalhoub families

Lat N 33 12' 56.58"

Lon E 35 17' 55.76"

50.August 1 16:50hrs air strike on home in
al-Luweizeh, killing 3 members of the Hashem family. The air strike was
immediately preceded by IAF-dropped leaflets warning the villagers to evacuate
the lower part of the village (where the strike took place)

1.July 15 11:00hrs Navy ship strike followed
by Helicopter attack on two-car convoy on Chamaa-Bidaya road, killing 21
persons fleeing from Marwaheen. The two cars appear to have been spotted by an
offshore Israeli Navy ship which fired at them.

Lat N 33 09' 29.80"

Lon E 35 11' 34.84"

2.July 15 20:30hrs Apache helicopter
strike on home in Houla, killing 2 members of the Slim family.

5.August 1 21:30hrs Helicopter missile
attack on group of men outside a home in Jamaliyeh, killing 7 members of
Jamaluddin family (relatives of the Mukhtar of the town, supporters of Lebanese
communist party). The Helicopter strikes took place while IDF commandos were
carrying out an operation at the nearby Hezbollah-controlled hospital.

Lat N 34 02' 58.89"

Lon E 36 11' 17.16"

6.August 1 23:30hrs Helicopter missile
strike on Syrian Kurdish family outside tent in Jamaliyeh, killing family of 6.
The Helicopter strikes took place while IDF commandos were carrying out an
operation at the nearby Hezbollah-controlled hospital.

No
GPS coordinates available

7.August 3 11:00hrs Helicopter strike on
home in al-Jibain, killing 3 members of Akil family. At the same time,
Helicopter strikes targeted a position outside the village of al-Jibain, 900
meters away from the home, killing 4 young men.

Location
of home:

Lat
N 33 07' 27.28"

Lon
E 35 14' 06.91"

D. IDF Navy Strikes

1.July 15 11:00hrs Navy ship strike
followed by Helicopter attack on two-car convoy on Chamaa-Bidaya road, killing
21 persons fleeing from Marwaheen. The two cars appear to have been spotted by
an offshore Israeli Navy ship which fired at them.

4. July 29 11:00hrs artillery strike on home in Arzun, killing
one elderly man

No
GPS coordinates available

F.IDF shooting deaths by ground troops

1.July 27 09:00hrs Shooting death of Lebanese
civilian woman by IDF soldiers occupying civilian home in Ainata. The woman had
entered her basement to retrieve foodstuffs, not knowing IDF soldiers were
inside the second floor of the building, and was walking away from the building
when shot

Lat N 33 07' 22.25"

Lon E 35 27' 04.07"

2.August 6 11:00hrs shooting of 4 elderly
members of Nasrallah family by IDF soldiers occupying their home in Taibeh
village. The family members had returned home to cook bread, unaware of the
presence of IDF soldiers inside their home, and were shot at close range by IDF
soldiers as they approached the home

Lat N 33 16' 17.78"

Lon E 35 31' 13.94"

3.
August 7 02:00hrs shooting of 1
elderly woman while IDF commando raided house in Shehin

Lat N 33 07' 35.34"

Lon E 35 15' 13.62"

4.
August 12 (time unknown) shooting
of 1 elderly man in home in Hadatha by IDF soldiers in neighboring house

Israel's Response to
Accusations of Targeting Civilian Sights in Lebanon
During the 'Second Lebanon
War'

Although aware of the serious threat posed by the Hizbullah
build-up and entrenchment in south Lebanon
in the years prior to its attack against Israel
on the 12th of July, 2006, which initiated the recent conflict, Israel sought
to exercise restraint and to use diplomatic means to check the Hizbullah
activities directed against it. Israel
called repeatedly, in the UN and elsewhere, for Hizbullah attacks to be halted
and for the government of Lebanon
to assume its responsibilities and duty to establish control over south Lebanon.

Even following the Hizbullah attack of July 12, Israel sought
to avoid an escalation of the conflict. The Israeli government gave Syria and
Hizbullah a 72 hour ultimatum to stop Hizbullah's activity along the
Lebanon-Israel border and to release the two kidnapped IDF soldiers, and so
avert the conflict. The ultimatum went unanswered and the missile attacks on Israel
intensified.

Guiding principles underlying IDF conduct

Inresponding to the threat posed by Hizbullah's
terrorist attacks, and notwithstanding the fact that Hizbullah made no effort
to comply with the principles of humanitarian law, the IDF regarded itself as
bound to comply with the established principles of the law of armed conflict.Indeed, IDF orders, doctrine and education
make clear that soldiers are obligated to act in accordance with international
law and custom, including the Geneva Conventions.For example, the Chief
of Staff's Order No. 33.0133 obligates every IDF soldier to conduct him/herself
in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. See also a recent IDF educational
publication on the Law of Armed Conflict entitled, "The Law of War on the
Battlefield" which also makes clear the obligation of IDF forces to abide by
the laws and rules of international law.

In seeking to implement these principles of international
humanitarian law, a number of key questions arise in relation to any operation
under consideration, including: 1) Is the target itself a legitimate military
objective? and 2) Even if the target is, in itself, legitimate, is there likely
to be disproportionate injury and damage to the civilian population and
civilian property?

Legitimate military objectives

The generally accepted definition of "military objective" is
that set out in Article 52(2) Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions,
which provides:

Insofar as objects are concerned, military objectives are
limited to those objects which, by their nature, location, purpose or use make
an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial
destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time,
offers a definite military advantage.

Regarding military targets, the IDF's "Law of War on the
Battlefield" provides, "A military target subject to attack is a target that by
its nature, location, purpose or use effectively contributes to the military
campaign of the other side, and its neutralization will offer a clear military
advantage to the attacking side." It goes on to explain that there are certain
objects that are normally immune from attack such as medical facilities and
staff, religious sites and cultural assets, the basic needs of the civilian
population (such as food products, agricultural areas and sanitation
facilities, etc.), locations that would pose an environmental risk if they were
attacked, and civil defense personnel.

It should be stressed that if a location is a legitimate
military objective, it does not cease to be so because civilians are in the
vicinity. Furthermore, Article 28 of the IVth Geneva Convention provides:

The presence of a protected person may not be used to render
certain points or areas immune from military operations.

Clearly, the deliberate placing of military targets in the
heart of civilian areas is a serious violation of humanitarian law, and those
who choose to locate such targets in these areas must bear responsibility for
the injury to civilians which this decision engenders. As international law
expert Professor Yoram Dinstein notes:

Should civilian casualties ensue from an attempt to shield
combatants or a military objective, the ultimate responsibility lies with the
belligerent placing innocent civilians at risk.

However, it is the IDF's position that the callous disregard
of those who hide behind civilians does not absolve the state seeking to
respond to such attacks of the responsibility to avoid or at least minimize
injury to civilians and their property in the course of its operations. In
particular this raises the complex issue of proportionality.

Proportionality

A further legal requirement is that the potential harm to
civilians and civilian objects expected in any attack must be proportionate to
the military advantage anticipated.

Major General A.P.V. Rogers, a former Director of British
Army Legal Services, explains the rationale behind this principle:

Although they are not military objectives, civilians and
civilian objects are subject to the general dangers of War in the sense that
attacks on military personnel and military objectives may cause incidental
damage. It may not be possible to limit the radius of effect entirely to the
objective to be attacked Members of the armed forces are not liable for such
incidental damage, provided it is proportionate to the military gain expected
of the attack.

While the principle is clear, in practice weighing the
expected military advantage against possible collateral damage can be an
extremely complex, especially in the heat of an armed conflict. In their report
to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Committee established to review
NATO bombings in Yugoslavia
highlighted the particular difficulties which arise when military objectives
are located in densely populated areas:

The answers to these questions are not simple. It may be
necessary to resolve them on a case by case basis, and the answers may differ
depending on the background and values of the decision maker. It is unlikely
that a human rights lawyer and an experienced combat commander would assign the
same relative values to military advantage and to injury to noncombatants. It
is suggested that the determination of relative values must be that of the
"reasonable military commander."

The test of proportionality to be applied in a case of armed
conflict (jus in bellum) is broader that that applied under the
principles of self-defense outside the context of actual warfare (jus ad
bellum). But it should be noted that the policies applied in practice by
the IDF conformed even with this stricter test of proportionality. In relation
to the self-defense standard, it should be recalled that international law
provides that the proportionality of a response to an attack is to be measured,
not in regard to the specific attack suffered by a state, but in regard to what
is necessary to remove the overall threat. As Rosalyn Higgins, currently
President of the International Court of Justice,has written,
proportionality:

cannot be in relation to any specific prior injury- it
has to be in relation to the overall legitimate objective of ending the
aggression.

Accordingly, the right of self-defense includes not only
acts implemented to prevent the immediate threat, but also to prevent
subsequent attacks". In Israel's case this means that its response had to be
measured not only in respect to the initial Hizbullah cross-border attack, or
even the 4,000 missiles fired at Israel's northern towns and villages, but also
against the threat of the tens of thousands of missiles which Hizbullah had
amassed and continued to receive from Iran and Syria.

From theory to practice- Israel's
operations in Lebanon

Israel
has adopted the principles of international humanitarian law outlined above and
the IDF has entrenched them in its orders, doctrine and education. With regard
to the selection of targets, for example,the IDF's "Law of War on the
Battlefield" not only emphasizes that a distinction must be made between
military objectives and civilian objects but also that "in cases where there is
doubt as to whether a civilian object has turned into a military objective it
must be assumed that it is not a military objective unless proven otherwise."

Similarly, in relation to the question of proportionality,
the IDF position is clear:

Even when it is not possible to isolate the civilians from
an assault and there is no other recourse but to attack, the commander is
required to refrain from an attack that is expected to inflict harm on the
civilian population, which is disproportionate to the expected military gain.

In practice, this requires that the IDF and the commander in
the field assess both the expected military gain, and the potential of
collateral injury to Lebanese civilians. With regard to the expected military
gain, it should be noted that the relevant advantage is not that of that
specific attack but of the military operation as a whole. As the German
Military Manual points out:

The term "military advantage" refers to the advantage which
can be expected of an attack as a whole and not only of isolated or specific
parts of the attack.

The possibility of collateral injury to civilians must be
weighed in light of these considerations. Hizbullah's deliberate placing of
missile launchers and stockpiles of weapons in the heart of civilian centers,
frequently inside and beneath populated apartment blocks, meant that this risk
was tragically high.

The presence of civilians in the area, however, does not
stop a military objective from being a legitimate target. This is the law, as
noted above, and reflected in state practice. Thus, for example, the Australian
Defense Force Manual states:

The presence of non-combatants in or around a military
objective does not change its nature as a military objective. Non-combatants in
the vicinity of a military objective must share the danger to which the
military objective is exposed.

Notwithstanding the above, it should be noted that even when
civilians were in the vicinity of military objectives, Israel made
significant efforts to avoid, and in any event to minimize, civilian
casualties. Every operation was considered on an individual basis to ensure
that it met the requirements of international law, including the test of
proportionality. Frequently, this meant the rejection of proposed military
operations when the likelihood of collateral damage to civilians and their
property was considered too high. On other occasions, it meant that operations
were conducted in such a way as to reduce the likelihood of incidental damage,
in terms of the timing or operational aspects of the attack. Finally, whenever
possible without jeopardizing the operation, Israel issued advance notice to the
local residents through various media, including dropping leaflets, radio
broadcasts and contacts with local leaders, to distance themselves from areas
in which Hizbullah was operating and from places in which its weaponry was
being stored.

Operations against infrastructure
used to support terrorist activity

The guiding principle adopted by the IDF was to target only
infrastructure that was making a significant contribution to the operational
capabilities ofthe Hizbullah terrorists. This meant that, for the most part,
Israeli attacks were limited to the transportation infrastructure. Most of the
other infrastructure (medical, cultural, railroad, tunnels, ports, banking,
manufacturing, farming, tourism, sewage, financial, electricity, drainage,
water and the like) was left almost completely untouched.

All IDF operations in Lebanon were directed against
legitimate military objectives, and specifically in relation to infrastructure,
included the following:

Bridges and roads - The activity of terrorist groups
in Lebanon
was dependent on major transportation arteries through which weaponry and
ammunition, as well as missile launchers and terrorist reinforcements, were
transported. Damage to key routeswas intended to prevent or obstruct the
planning and perpetrating of attacks by the terrorists. It was also intended to
prevent the kidnapped Israeli soldiers from being smuggled out of the country.

Under international law there is widespread recognition that
lines of transportation which can serve military purposes are a legitimate
military target. In its Commentary on the Additional Protocols to the Geneva
Conventions, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) includes in
its list of military objectives considered to be of "generally recognized
military importance":

"Lines and means of communications (railway lines, roads,
bridges, tunnels and canals) which are of fundamental military importance."

A useful practical test for gauging the military importance
of lines of transportation is proposed in the US Air Force Pamphlet, which asks
"whether they make an effective contribution to an adversary's military action
so that their capture, destruction or neutralization offers a definite military
advantage in the circumstances ruling at the time."

Notwithstanding the operational justifications for targeting
major roads in Lebanon,
the IDF took pains to ensure that sufficient routes remained open to enable
civilians to leave combat zones and to permit access for humanitarian supplies.
Efforts were also made to ensure that damage to civilian vehicles was
minimized.

Runways at BeirutInternationalAirport-
In the view of the IDF, rendering the runways unusable constituted one of the
most important and appropriate methods of preventing reinforcements and
supplies of weaponry and military materiel reaching the terrorist
organizations. It was also a response to reports that the Hizbullah terrorists
intended to fly the kidnapped Israelis out of Lebanon.

Airports are widely recognized to be legitimate military
targets. The Canadian Law of Armed Conflict Manual, for example, notes that
"ports and airfields are generally accepted as being military objectives" while
the ICRC list of generally recognized military objectives includes: "airfields,
rocket launching ramps and naval base installations."

It should also be noted that, in its operation at BeirutAirport,
the IDF was careful not to damage the central facilities of the airport,
including the radar and control towers, allowing the airport to continue to
control international flights over its airspace.

Al Manar TV station- Operating as the Hizbullah
television station, Al Manar was used to relay messages to terrorists and to
incite acts of terrorism. The ICRC list of accepted military objectives
includes "the installations of broadcasting and television stations."
Similarly, the Committee established to review NATO bombings in Yugoslavia noted in relation to NATO attacks on
radio and television stations in Belgrade:
"If the media is used to incite crimes then it is a legitimate target Insofar
as the attack actually was aimed at disrupting the communications network it
was legally acceptable."

Fuel reserves - Terrorist activity is dependent,
inter alia, on a regular supply of fuel without which the terrorists cannot
operate. For this reason a number of fuel depots which primarily served the
terrorist operations were targeted. From intelligence Israel has
obtained, it appears that this step had a significant effect on reducing the
capability of the terrorist organizations.

The legitimacy of directing attacks on fuel and power
installations has been widely noted. The Canadian Law of Armed Conflict Manual,
for example, lists "petroleum storage areas" as "generally accepted as being
military objectives", while the ICRC list of military objectives also includes
"Installations providing energy mainly for national defense, e.g. coal, other
fuels, or atomic energy, and plants producing gas or electricity mainly for
military consumption."(29)

One of the claimsthat have been made against Israel concerns the oil spill that occurred off
the shores of Lebanon
during the war. Without making any comment regarding the factual validity of
such claims, it should be emphasized that Israel ensuredthatsea and
air access was allowed to any assistance offered with regard to the oil spill,
even in the midst of a naval and aerial blockade which had to be imposed for
operational and security reasons."

Beyond such specific instances of infrastructure serving the
Hizbullah terrorist organization, Israel took care to try to avoid
damage to civilian structures and services. The effects were noted by
Washington Post journalist William M. Arkin who visited Lebanon during
the conflict. Regarding the destruction in Beirut he wrote:

Only a very short drive from the neighborhood of southern Beirut though, you are
back to bustling boulevards; a few neighborhoods over and there are luxury
stores and five star hotels. Beyond the Hizbullah neighborhoods, the city is
normal. Electricity flows just as it did before the fighting. The Lebanese
sophisticates are glued to their cell phones. Even an international airport
that was bombed is reopened. An accurate reading of what happened and what
south Beirut
means might produce a different picture. Israel has the means to impart
greater destruction, but that does not mean intrinsically that it is more
brutal. If Hizbullah had bigger rockets or more accurate ones, it would have
done not only the same, but undoubtedly more.

Types of weaponry used

In the course of the conflict in Lebanon Israel used a range
of weapons and ammunition in its efforts to confront the terrorist threat. All
the weapons, and the manner in which they were used by the IDF, were in
conformity with international humanitarian law. Among the types of weaponry
used were Cluster Munitions (CBUs). Such weapons are not prohibited by
international law- neither under customary international law, nor under
the Conventional Weapons Convention, to which Israel is party. They are possessed
by several dozen states and have been used by many of them.

Clearly, as in the case of all arms, the use of cluster
munitions must be in accordance with the principles of the law of armed
conflict. In the course of the conflict, CBUs were used as part of Israel's
response to the unique threat posed by Hizbullah. In particular, the nature of
the campaign, the massive scope of missile attacks- including CBU attacks
- against Israeli population centers, and the fact that missile launchers were
deliberately and expertly camouflaged in built-up areas and areas with dense
vegetation, were all factors in the decision to use thistype of weapon.
The decision to use CBUs to neutralize the missile attacks was only made after
other options had been examined and found to be less effective in ensuring
maximal coverage of the missile-launching areas. In practice, the operational
effectiveness of CBUs was clearly shown, resulting in a disruption of missile
attacks against Israeli population centers.

Despite the urgent need to prevent the continuous firing of
missiles into Israel by Hizbullah, Israel
recognized the need to take measures to avoid, and in any event to minimize,
civilian casualties. Among the measures taken by Israel was the printing of millions
of fliers, written in Arabic, which were dispersed over populated areas,
explaining that due to Hizbullah activity, residents should evacuate these
areas in order to avoid being hurt. These messages were also broadcast through
PA systems and through radio broadcasts on the Al-Mashrek station, broadcasting
out of Israel
in Arabic. Additionally, Israeli officials contacted the mayors and local
leaders of a number of villages in order to ensure the evacuation of residents.

All CBU fire was directed at legitimate military objectives
and for humanitarian reasons most of the CBU fire was directed at open areas,
keeping a safe distance from built up areas. In those cases where CBU fire was
directed at military objectives which were in the vicinity of built up areas,
it was always toward particular locations from which missiles were being
launched against Israel, and after significant measures were taken to warn
civilians to leave the area. Moreover, following the cessation of active
hostilities, Israel
handed over to UNIFIL maps of the areas suspected of containing unexploded
ordnance, including from CBUs, in order to facilitate the ordnance clearing
process.

Humanitarian issues

In the course of the conflict, numerous acute humanitarian
issues arose. Despite the ongoing conflict, Israel sought to find practical and
effective ways to address these issues and to alleviate suffering.

These efforts included steps taken to facilitate access of
humanitarian assistance to civilians within Lebanon. An operations room was set
up in northern Tel Aviv to coordinate international efforts to provide aid to Lebanon. This
facility was headed by senior IDF staff and manned by representatives of the
Israeli Foreign Ministry, the United Nations and the International Committee of
the Red Cross.

At the same time Israel
established a "humanitarian corridor" to enable shipments of aid to reach Lebanon despite
the ongoing hostilities. A sea-route to Lebanon
was established through the port in Beirut, and
a land route was designated from Beirut
northward along the coast to the Syrian-Lebanese border. Throughout the
hostilities, Israel
coordinated humanitarian issues with the international community, even
expanding the corridor to include other points of entry, and establishing a
special 'humanitarian headquarters' to direct the coordination efforts. In
addition, Israel made
arrangements to permit the landing of aircraft at BeirutInternationalAirport
to unload humanitarian goods for residents of southern Lebanon.

Another issue of humanitarian concern was the evacuation of
foreign nationals from Lebanon.
From the very first day of the war, the IDF helped coordinate the evacuation of
at least 70,000 foreign nationals from Lebanon. To the best of our
knowledge, this effort was accomplished without any loss of life. A total of
213 passenger ships, 123 land convoys and 196 helicopters were allowed to dock
in or travel through Lebanon
to evacuate the expatriates and tourists. The convoys were able to travel on
approved routes, which were coordinated with IDF forces.

Israeli hospitals also offered free medical care to any
Lebanese person who was wounded in the war. In the words of Professor Zev
Rothstein, Director-Generalof the ShebaMedicalCenter at Tel Hashomer:

We are not to blame for this war. We don't ask who is to
blame. We have an open Jewish heart. Our aim is to save lives and reduce
misery. We don't hate like the terrorists.We have housing for Lebanese
families and food at no cost.We will take all who need us, including
adults.all the costs are paid by donorsif a child were brought here, we would
not ask whether his father is a terrorist.

This offer was broadcast via a hospital representative in Cyprus due to
the fact that many Lebanese fled there, and was alsobroadcast on Arabic
radio stations in the region.

Conclusion

Israel's military operations in Lebanon took place in the
context of a clear asymmetry with regard to the implementation of principles of
international humanitarian law: Hizbullah, in clear violation of these
principles, deliberately targeted Israeli civilians, while attempting to use
the cover of civilians and civilian structures in order to stockpile its
weapons, hide its fighters and fire missiles into Israel. Israel, on the
other hand, held itself bound to apply the principles of humanitarian law, even
while facing an opponent who deliberately flouted them.

In doing so, Israel
took pains to ensure that its operations were directed against legitimate
military targets and that in conducting its operations incidental damage to
civilians was kept to a minimum, both by ruling out attacks which would cause
disproportionate damage and by giving advance notice wherever possible. A
survey of international practice suggests that the steps taken by Israel to
address humanitarian considerations corresponded to, and often were more
stringent than, those taken by many western democracies confronting similar or
lesser threats.

The suffering of civilians was a tragic reality on both
sides of the conflict. Israel
made strenuous efforts to reduce this toll, both by protecting Israeli
civilians and by seeking to minimize civilian suffering on the Lebanese side.
Following the conflict, Israel
has also undertaken numerous investigations and analyses with a view to
learning lessons from the conflict and to enabling improvements to be made in
the future. Israel's
efforts in this regard should not, however, diminish the ultimate
responsibility of those who callously and deliberately used the Lebanese
civilian population as a shield, for the suffering that inevitably resulted
from their actions.

[1]
Israeli authorities have not provided a total figure of their strikes against Lebanon.
According to the assessment of UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC),
Israeli aerial and ground strikes during the first weeks of the war used up to
3,000 bombs, rockets and artillery rounds daily, with the number rising to
6,000 towards the end of the war. See http://www.maccsl.org/War%202006.htm.

[4]
See Human Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns:
Law of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border
(New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), p. 92.

[5]
Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman, Israel's Permanent Representative to the
UN, during the open debate on "The Situation in the Middle East including the
Palestinian Question," UN Security Council, New York, July 21, 2006, U.N. doc.
S/PV.5493.

[8]
MACC SL, South Lebanon Cluster Bomb Info Sheet as at November 4, 2006, http://www.maccsl.org/reports/Leb%20UXO%20Fact%20Sheet%204%20November,%202006.pdf
(accessed March 18, 2007). As of June 5, 2007, MACC SL's contractors, United
Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) engineers, and the Lebanese Armed
Forces had cleared and destroyed more than 118,700 dud submunitions. MACC SL,
May 2007 Report of the MineActionCoordinationCenterSouth
Lebanon.

[12]
While the term "war crime" is colloquially used to mean any particularly
heinous laws of war violation by a person or warring party, Human Rights Watch
uses the term in its technical legal sense. A war crime is a serious violation
of certain rules of international humanitarian law committed with criminal
intent (that is, intentionally or recklessly) by an individual. War crimes are
enshrined in applicable treaties, such as the grave breaches provisions of the
1949 Geneva Conventions and 1977 Additional Protocols and the Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court, and in customary international humanitarian
law.

[13]
Human Rights Watch has published a separate report on Hezbollah rocket attacks
on Israel in violation of
the humanitarian law prohibitions against deliberate and indiscriminate attacks
against civilians and civilian objects, titled Civilians under Assault: Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel
during the 2006 War.

[14]
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12
August 1949 (Geneva: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers, 1987) pp. 681-82.

[16]
See Protocol Additional to the Geneva
Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of
International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) of 8 June 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 3,
entered into force December 7, 1978, article 58(a).

[18]
Article 44 of Protocol I provides that "to promote the protection of the
civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to
distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in
an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack." However, Israel is not a
party to Protocol I and article 44 is not considered reflective of customary
international law.

[23]
Human Rights Watch approached Israeli officials on a number of instances: (i)
meeting on August 8, 2006 with representatives from the Foreign Ministry,
Ministry of Justice, IDF's legal office, (ii) meeting on August 9, 2006 with
head of the strategic planning unit of the IDF intelligence, (iii)
meeting on February 26, 2007 with Gil Haskal, head of NGO section at IDF. We
also sent a detailed letter on January 8, 2007 to Defense Minister Amir Peretz
requesting detailed information about its targeting practices.

[25]
See Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua, Nicaragua v. United States, Merits,
Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1986, p. 14, June 27, 1986 (for a state to have legal
responsibility for the perpetration of acts in violation of international law
by a non-state armed group, it would "have to be proved that that State had
effective control of the military or paramilitary operations in the course of
which the alleged violations were committed") para. 115; see also,
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Prosecutor v. Dusko Tadic, case no. IT-94-1-A (judgment), July 15,
1999 ("a conflict is international in nature where a state exercises overall
control over subordinate armed forces or militias or paramilitary units engaged
in armed conflict with another state. The control required for those powers to
be considered de facto state organs goes beyond the mere financing and
equipping and involves also participation in the planning and supervision of
military operations. However, it is not required that specific orders or
instructions relating to single military actions be issued").

[26]According to Marco Sassoli, "more controversially, the
law of international armed conflicts applies when a state is directing
hostilities against a transnational armed group on the territory of another
state without the agreement of the latter state (e.g., Israel in Lebanon
in 2006, if we consider the acts of Hezbollah to not be attributable to Lebanon)."
Marco Sassoli, "Transnational Armed Groups and International Humanitarian Law,"
Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Winter 2006, p. 5;
but see, Kenneth Anderson, "Is the Israel-Hezbollah conflict an international
armed conflict?" July 14, 2006, accessed at
http://kennethandersonlawofwar.blogspot.com/2006/07/is-israel-hezbollah-conflict.html
("the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is not, on first pass, an international one,
because Hezbollah, while a party to a conflict, is not a party to the Geneva
Conventions.")

[27]
Depending on the status of Hezbollah forces, legal issues could arise as to
whether Hezbollah fighters may be subject to lawful attack as combatants or as
civilians "directly participating in hostilities."

[28]Convention (IV) Respecting
the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Annexed Regulations Concerning the
Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907 (Hague Regulations), 3
Martens Nouveau Recueil (ser. 3) 461, 187 Consol. T.S. 227, entered into force
January 26, 1910. Israel,
like many states established after the Second World War, is not party to the
Hague Regulations.

[29]Protocol Additional to the Geneva
Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of
International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) of 8 June 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 3,
entered into force December 7, 1978. Israel is not party to Protocol I.
Under article 96 of Protocol I, non-state actors may commit, under certain specific
circumstances, to apply the Geneva Conventions and the protocols if they
declare their willingness to do so to the Swiss government. The Palestinian
Authority has never made a declaration under article 96.

[30]
See Yorem Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities
under the Law of International Armed Conflict, (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), pp. 10-11 (the "Hague Convention (IV) of 1907 has
acquired over the years the lineaments of customary international law" and
"[m]uch of the Protocol may be regarded as declaratory of customary
international law, or at least as non-controversial.") See generally ICRC, Customary International Humanitarian Law.

[31]
One important difference relates to reprisals, which are permitted in very
limited circumstances during international armed conflicts but not in
non-international armed conflicts.

[32]
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating
to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) of 8
June 1977, 1125 U.N.T.S. 3, entered into force December 7, 1978. Israel is not
party to Protocol I. Under article 96 of Protocol I, non-state actors may
commit, under certain specific circumstances, to apply the Geneva Conventions
and the protocols if they declare their willingness to do so to the Swiss
government.

[33]Convention (IV) Respecting
the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the Annexed Regulations Concerning the
Laws and Customs of War on Land of 18 October 1907 (Hague Regulations), 3
Martens Nouveau Recueil (ser. 3) 461, 187 Consol. T.S. 227, entered into force
January 26, 1910. Israel,
like many states established after the Second World War, is not party to the
Hague Regulations.

[56]
"Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
(For the period from 21 January 2006 to 18 July 2006)," 21 July 2006, UN
document S/2006/560.

[57]
Ibid.; Nicholas Blanford, "Hizbollah and the IDF: Accepting New Realities Along
the Blue Line," The MIT Electronic
Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6,
Summer 2006. See also Amos Harel, "Hezbollah kills 8 soldiers, kidnaps two in
offensive on northern border," Haaretz, July 13, 2006.

[58]
Hezbollah claims that Israel
held four Lebanese prisoners (including one Israeli citizen of Lebanese
descent) prior to the 2006 conflict; Israel acknowledges holding only
two of the men. Samir Qantar, a Lebanese citizen whose name is the most often
invoked by Hezbollah, is currently serving several life sentences in an Israeli
prison for the murder of a policeman and a father and his four-year-old
daughter in Nahariya in 1979, during an attack he carried out as a member of
the Palestine Liberation Front. Following the "Operation Truthful Promise"
abductions, Hezbollah member of Parliament `Ali`Ammar immediately linked the abductions of the Israeli soldiers to
Qantar's release. See "Lebanese Hezbollah TV Talk Show Discusses Implications
of Operation," BBC Worldwide Monitoring, January 13, 2006. An Israeli
court in 2002 convicted a second prisoner, Nissim Nasir, an Israeli citizen of
Lebanese descent, of spying on Israel.
Hezbollah also claims that Israel
is holding Yehia Skaff, a Lebanese citizen who is believed to have taken part,
as a member of Abu Jihad's Fatah organization, in the March 1978 hijacking of a
civilian bus north of Tel Aviv that resulted in the deaths of at least 35
Israeli civilians. Israel
has always denied holding Skaff, but Hezbollah claims that Lebanese prisoners
have seen Skaff alive in Israeli prisons. Hezbollah also claims that a fourth
person, `Ali Faratan, is in Israeli custody, although Israel denies
this. Faratan is a Lebanese fisherman who disappeared off the southern coast of
Lebanon
in 2001; his boat was later found with blood stains and bullet marks, making it
likely that he was shot at sea. Israel
is also believed to hold the bodies of approximately 45 Lebanese fighters
killed prior to the conflict. Rym Ghazal, "Thirty-four days of war for four
men: Who Are They?," Daily Star (Lebanon),
September 11, 2006.

[59]
For an overview of the Sheba`
Farm dispute, see Asher Kaufman, "Size Does Not Matter: The Sheba` Farms in History
and Contemporary Politics," The MIT
Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6, Summer 2006.

[61]
Human Rights Watch press release, "Gaza/Israel/Lebanon: Release the hostages,"
July 5, 2007. The International Convention against the Taking of Hostages
(1979) in article 1 defines hostage-taking as the seizure or detention of a
person (the hostage), combined with threatening to kill or injure or continue
to detain the hostage, in order to compel a third party to do or refrain from
doing something as a condition for the hostage's release. The various
provisions of international humanitarian law that prohibit hostage-taking do
not limit the offense to the taking of civilians, but apply it to the taking of
any person. See ICRC, Customary
International Humanitarian Law, p. 336.

[62]In 2004, Israel
negotiated a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah after the latter kidnapped
Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman and former IDF colonel, and the
bodies of three IDF soldiers. Ian Fisher and Greg Myre, "Israel and Hezbollah Trade Prisoners and War
Dead in Flights to and from Germany,"
The New York Times, January 30, 2004.

[66]
"Chief of General Staff: 'We have no intention of hurting Syria or the
Citizens of Lebanon," Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, July 28,
2006,
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+from+Lebanon-+Hizbullah/Chief+of+Staff+Halutz-+No+intention+of+hurting+Syria+or+citizens+of+Lebanon+27-Jul-2006.htm
(accessed March 28, 2007).

[69]
Scott Wilson, "Israeli War Plan Had no Exit Strategy: Forecast of 'Diminishing
Returns' in Lebanon Fractured Unity in Cabinet," Washington Post, October 21, 2006 ("Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, Israel's
chief of staff, set [the conventional IDF plan for a ground invasion] aside.
Instead, Halutz, the first air force general to lead the military, emphasized
air power. He hoped aerial assaults would encourage Lebanon's Sunni Muslim and
Christian populations to turn against Hezbollah.")

[70] For
Israel's
strategy during its 1993 and 1996 armed conflicts with Hezbollah, see Human
Rights Watch, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons
on the Israel-Lebanon Border (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996) and Operation
Grapes of Wrath: the Civilian Victims (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997).
In the 93 war, we noted in Civilian Pawns ,Israel tried to make it
difficult for Hezbollah to operate in southern Lebanon "by deliberately
inflicting serious damage on villages in southern Lebanon, through massive
shelling which would raise the cost to the population of permitting Hizballah
to live and operate in its midst." (pg 4) Similarly in 1996, we noted in Grapes
of Wrath that Israel
again sought "to affect a massive displacement of the civilian population in
south Lebanon..."
as "a means of exerting pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm the
guerrilla forces" (pg 3).

[71]
In addition to the deaths, Hezbollah rockets also caused 33 severe injuries, 68
moderate injuries, and 1,388 light injuries among Israeli civilians, and an
additional 2,773 Israeli civilians were treated for shock.

[72]
The deputy secretary general of Hezbollah, Na`im Qassem, credits military
secrecy as the "key to success" to Hezbollah's military strategy. Qassem, Hizbollah: The Story from Within, p.
69-70.

[73]
Hezbollah's popular support is reflected in the massive turnout for its
rallies. Media outlets estimated the attendance at Hezbollah's "Victory Rally"
on September 22, 2006 in the hundreds of thousands.

[88]
Interview with al-Manar television, August 17, 2006, cited by Blanford,
"Hizbollah and the IDF: Accepting New Realities Along the Blue Line," The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies.

[89]
In our earlier report, Fatal Strikes, Human Rights Watch did not have
information about Hezbollah firing from the area. A witness quoted by Human
Rights Watch for that report stated "To my knowledge, Hezbollah was not
operating in the area, but I can't be 100 percent sure because we were
sleeping. There is a road near the house that Hezbollah could of course use to
move around, but it was late and we were asleep in the shelter." Fatal Strikes, pp. 24-25.

[90]
This survivor had remained in the border village of `Aitaroun after the attack,
and Human Rights Watch was unable to travel to `Aitaroun during the war because
of the ongoing fighting in the area. Hence, the information provided by the
survivor was not available to Human Rights Watch at the time of the publication
of Fatal Strikes.

[99]
Ibid. The municipal official claimed to Human Rights Watch that there was a
danger from unexploded ordinance in the area, but the repeated calls from the
Hezbollah official to ensure Human Rights Watch was not proceeding to the
attack site strongly suggests that there were destroyed rocket launchers,
rockets, or a field position at the site.

[106]
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, "Hizbullah's Exploitation of
Lebanese Population Centers and Civilians: Photographic Evidence,"
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2006/Operation+Change+of+Direction+Video+Clips.htm
(accessed October 24, 2006). The video footage presented on the website, of a
single incident, does not support such a sweeping statement. The footage in
question, moreover, is suggestive but inconclusive even with respect to the
specific incident depicted: the video shows Hezbollah fighters firing rockets
from buildings, but does not answer the question of whether the buildings were
inhabited by civilians at the time or were located in populated areas.

[107]
IDF Spokesperson, "Completion of Inquiry into July 30th Incident in
Qana," August 3, 2006,
http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55484.EN
(accessed April 4, 2007).

[111]
The evidence presented by those arguing Hezbollah engaged in systematic shielding
(and that these shielding practices were primarily responsible for the large
number of civilian casualties) is often flimsy. For example, Harvard Law
Professor Alan Dershowitz has offered eight "credible news sources" that
reported incidents of the use of civilian shields by Hezbollah. Alan
Dershowitz, "What is 'Human Rights Watch' Watching?", Jerusalem Post, August 24, 2006. A close examination of those eight
"credible news stories" provides almost no evidence; several of the news
stories simply report second-hand information or the views of people who were
not in Lebanon
during the conflict. See Aryeh Neier, "The Attack on Human Rights Watch," New York Review of Books, November 2, 2006.

[112]
See, for example, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, article
8(2)(b)(xxiii) (prohibiting use of human shields.)

[113]
See Human Rights Watch, Off Target: The
Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq (Human Rights Watch,
2003), pp. 67-69.

[114]
See, for example, Sabrina Tavernise, "Christians Fleeing Lebanon Denounce
Hezbollah," The New York Times, July 28, 2006; Michael Totten, "The
Siege of Ain Ebel," http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001361.html (accessed
on February 1, 2007); US Newswire, "Hezbollah is Using Christian Villages to
Shield its Military Operations in Violation of International Law, Says CSI"
[CSI stands for Christian Solidarity International], August 2, 2006; Mark
MacKinnon, "Christian villagers have nowhere to run; Caught between warring
sides, many stay to protect their historic home," The Globe and Mail (Toronto), August 2, 2006.

[127]See
Protocol I, article 51(7), "The presence or movements of the civilian
population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points
or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield
military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour, or impede military
operations."

[128]
UNIFIL press statements were issued each afternoon during the conflict, and
covered the previous 24 hours of the conflict. Hence, the press release of July
20 would cover the period of the afternoon of July 19 up to the afternoon of
July 20.

[150]
An analysis of IDF attacks on UNIFIL is included in Section VIII, under the
subheading "Killing of Four UN Observers, Khiam, July 25."

[151]
See for example, Greg Myre, "Wounded Israelis tell of a tough, elusive enemy:
Unexpectedly fierce ground battles," The New York Times, August 11, 2006 (quoting an IDF captain who spent
four days in Bint Jbeil commenting on Hezbollah: "They work in small units or
two or three men. They wear civilian clothes. You don't
see them, you just see their fire."); Mark MacKinnon, "In birthplace of
Hezbollah, support builds as bombs fall; Staunch 'reservists' stay after tourists, bureaucrats flee," The Globe and Mail (Toronto), August 9,
2006 (describing reserve Hezbollah fighters that he met in Baalbek: "They
carried no obvious weapons, but kept in touch with unseen others over
constantly crackling walkie-talkies. Though dressed in civilian clothes, they
were Hezbollah security men"); Bassem Mroue, "AP Blog: Reports From Mideast
Conflict, August 12, 2006," Associated Press Newswire (recounting how "several
Hezbollah members, all in civilian clothes with blue or beige caps and carrying
walkie talkies, showed up and asked us to follow them"); The Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, "Hizballah at War: a Military Assessment,"
December 2006, p. 5: ("In general-but not exclusively-Hizballah's fighting units
were squad-sized elements of seven to 10 men At the lower levels, fighters
made use of two-way radios for communication within the villages and between
isolated fighting positions.")

[152]
See for example, Nicholas Blanford, "Hezbollah fighters emerge from rubble as
refugees defy curfew to head home," The
Times (London),
August 15, 2006 (describing a Hezbollah fighter: "He wore a sweat shirt and
khaki-coloured trousers rather than the camouflage uniform normally worn by
Hezbollah fighters in the field. Some of his companions wore combat trousers
and boots, lending them a paramilitary appearance.")

[153]
Article 44 of Protocol I provides that "to promote the protection of the
civilian population from the effects of hostilities, combatants are obliged to
distinguish themselves from the civilian population while they are engaged in
an attack or in a military operation preparatory to an attack." However, Israel is not a
party to Protocol I and article 44 is not considered reflective of customary
international law.

[156]
Human Rights Watch approached Israeli officials on a number of instances: (i)
meeting on August 8, 2006 with representatives from the Foreign Ministry,
Ministry of Justice, IDF's legal office, (ii) meeting on August 9, 2006 with
head of the strategic planning unit of the IDF intelligence, (iii) meeting on
February 26, 2007 with Gil Haskal, head of NGO section at IDF. We also sent a
detailed letter on January 8, 2007 to Defense Minister Amir Peretz requesting
detailed information about the IDF's targeting practices.

[157]
IDF Spokesperson, "Chief of General Staff: 'We have no intention of hurting Syria
or the Citizens of Lebanon," July 28, 2006,
http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55255.EN
(accessed October 17, 2006). Four days earlier, on July 24, Halutz had
commented that Bint Jbeil was a "Hezbollah symbol," Ynet News,
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3280528,00.html (accessed November 6,
2006).

[165]
See ICRC, Customary International
Humanitarian Law, p. 65 ("State practice indicates that all obligations
with respect to the principle of distinction and the conduct of hostilities
remain applicable even if civilians remain in the zone of operations after a
warning has been issued. Threats that all remaining civilians would be
considered liable to attack have been condemned and withdrawn.").

[169]Humanitarian agencies
stressed throughout the war that there were no safe passage corridors for
humanitarians or for fleeing civilians. Christopher Stokes, the director of Lebanon
operations for Medecins Sans Frontieres, stated
on July 31: "For many days, the concept of humanitarian corridors has been used
to mask the reality: it is impossible to get safe access to the villages in the
south. The so-called corridor is a kind of alibi because in effect there is no
real access for humanitarian organizations in the south. And the international
community is deluding itself, if it believes it." MSF Field News, "Christopher
Stokes, MSF Director of Operations: Humanitarian corridor into south Lebanon is a
delusion," July 31, 2006. Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, stated on August 10: "The time for
improved access is long overdue. Even life-saving, emergency evacuations so
desperately needed are, at best, delayed for days. We also face enormous
obstacles to bringing in aid convoys loaded with essential foodstuffs, water
and medicines for trapped civilians." ICRC press release, "ICRC President
insists on improved access to southern Lebanon," August 10, 2006.The UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights said that "Many people are simply unable to leave
southern Lebanon because they have no transport, because roads have been
destroyed, because they are ill or elderly, because they must care for others
who are physically unable to make the journey, or because they simply have
nowhere to go." UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, "High Commissioner for
Human Rights condemns killings of civilians in Qana, South
Lebanon," July 31, 2006,
http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/unhchr.htm (accessed April 6,
2007).

[171]
The July 25 flyer had a drawing of a Hezbollah cleric hiding behind a bound
Lebanese family with an airplane flying overhead, and stated "He who says he is
protecting you, is really robbing you." The message on the flyer continued
(emphasis in original):

To all citizens south of the Litani River

Due to the
terror activities being carried out against the State of Israel from
within your villages and homes, the IDF is forced to respond immediately
against these activities, even within your villages.

For your safety!!!

We call upon you to evacuate your
villages and move north of the LitaniRiver.

The State of Israel

[172]
UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon,
Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon,
(Geneva:
November 2006), para. 156.

[174]
Israeli authorities have not provided a total figure of their strikes against Lebanon.
According to the assessment of UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC),
Israeli aerial and ground strikes during the first weeks of the war used up to
3,000 bombs, rockets and artillery rounds daily, with the number rising to
6,000 towards the end of the war. See http://www.maccsl.org/War%202006.htm.

[175]
See Rogers, Law on the Battlefield,
pp. 68-69 (land as a military objective subject to attack).

[176]
Yorem Dinstein, The Conduct of
Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict, (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2004),
p. 92.

[179]
Statement by Ambassador Dan Gillerman, Israel's Permanent Representative to the
UN, during the open debate on "The Situation in the Middle East including the
Palestinian Question," UN Security Council, New York, July 21, 2006, U.N. doc.
S/PV.5493.

[180]Eli Ashkenazi, Ran Reznick, Jonathan Lis, and
Jack Khoury, "The Day After: The War in Numbers," Haaretz, August 18, 2006. Israeli authorities have not
provided a total figure of their strikes in Lebanon, including the artillery
barrage against villages in the south. According to the assessment of the UN
Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC), Israeli aerial and ground strikes
during the first weeks of the war used up to 3,000 bombs, rockets and artillery rounds daily, with the number
rising to 6,000 towards the end of the war. See
http://www.maccsl.org/War%202006.htm.

[186]
Human Rights Watch similarly found that a NATO air strike on the Serbian radio
and television headquarters in Belgrade during the 1999 Kosovo conflict was
unlawful, concluding: "While stopping such propaganda may serve to demoralize
the Yugoslav population and undermine the government's political support,
neither purpose offers the 'concrete and direct' military advantage necessary
to make them a legitimate military target." Human Rights Watch letter to NATO
Secretary-General Javier Solana, May 13, 1999; Human Rights Watch, Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign
(New York: Human Rights Watch, 2000).

[187]
Article 52(3) of Protocol I: "In case of doubt whether an object which is
normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or
other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to
military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used."

[189]
Hezbollah officials told the Associated Press that around 250 Hezbollah
fighters were killed during the war. See Sam Ghattas, "Lebanon sees
more than 1,000 war deaths," Associated Press, December 28, 2006.

[197]
Scott Wilson, "Israeli War Plan Had No Exit Strategy: Forecast of 'Diminishing
Returns' In Lebanon
Fractured Unity in Cabinet," Washington Post, October 21, 2006. See also David
Makovsky and Jeffrey White, "Lessons and Implications of the Israel-Hizballah
War: A Preliminary Assessment," The Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
October 2006, p. 46.

[203]
According to the Erlich report, "13 rockets were fired from within village
houses in Baflay, 19 from within 200-meter radius of the village and 20 within
a 500-meter radius." Intelligence and TerrorismInformationCenter at the Center for
Special Studies, "Hezbollah's use of Lebanese civilians as human shields: the
extensive military infrastructure positioned and hidden in populated areas.
From within the Lebanese towns and villages deliberate rocket attacks were
directed against civilian targets in Israel" (November 2006), Appendix 4
(hereinafter, the "Erlich report"). Note however that the report does not
detail the date or the exact location of these attacks during the war.

[210]
The father and brother of Shaikh Akash refused to be interviewed by Human
Rights Watch without the presence of Hezbollah and municipal officials, and
told Human Rights Watch researchers to leave when they questioned the family
about the activities of Shaikh Akash.

[211]
See Jon Lee Anderson, "The Battle for Lebanon: Has Israel's Assault
Weakened Hezbollah-or Made it Stronger," New
Yorker, August 7 and 14, 2006. Anderson
quotes an unnamed young man who approached him outside the destroyed seminary
and told him that "Hezbollah had kept bombs in the basement of the mosque, but
that two days [prior to the attack] a truck had taken the cache away." The man
later shows his hostility to Hezbollah, stating that "everyone wants to end
this Hezbollah regime, but nobody can say anything." Human Rights Watch's own
investigation into the alleged use of the mosque for the storing of Hezbollah
rockets did not confirm the unnamed man's allegations, and there are substantial
reasons to doubt his account. Saida is a predominantly Sunni town that
generally does not support Hezbollah. The seminary itself is bordered by a
technical college run by the Hariri Foundation, which is also predominantly
Sunni and a voice in favor of Hezbollah's disarming. Given the location of the
seminary in such a hostile location, it is doubtful that Hezbollah would have
risked using it to store weapons, since it had access to many other storage
facilities in less hostile areas. See also, Hamza Hendawi, "Israel Targeting
Hezbollah Infrastructure," Associated Press, July 26, 2006.

[222]
Erlich report, Appendix 4. NGO Monitor cites the information that two rockets
were fired from within village houses to discredit HRW's findings in Fatal Strikes. NGO Monitor, "Amnesty and
HRW Claims Discredited in Detailed Report,"December 28, 2006. However,
neither report provides any evidence to show that Hezbollah actually used the
Bzeih home for military purposes.

[224]
The gravestone of `Ali Muhammad Suidan also has Hezbollah insignia, but family
members explained that although he was a Hezbollah supporter, he had never been
involved in Hezbollah military activities and was not a fighter. Human Rights
Watch interview (name withheld), Yatar, October 23, 2006. This information was
independently confirmed by the deputy mayor of Yatar. Human Rights Watch
interview with Hussain `Ali Musa Suidan, September 13, 2006.

[231]
Although both rescue workers were buried as Hezbollah members, villagers told
Human Rights Watch that they were not Hezbollah fighters, but simply Hezbollah
members who participated in the rescue efforts in civilian clothes, as members
of Hezbollah's own civil defense structures, the Islamic Health Committee,
which operate separately from the official Lebanese civil defense structures.

[237]
Erlich Report, Appendix 4. NGO Monitor cites the Erlich Report's finding that
Hezbollah fired two rockets from within village houses to discredit HRW's quote
in Fatal Strikes of a witness in
Houla that said that that were no "[Hezbollah] resistance in the town at the
time." However, they provide no evidence to show that Hezbollah specifically
used the Slim home for any military attack or that Hezbollah was firing from
Houla that day. NGO Monitor, "Amnesty and HRW Claims Discredited in Detailed
Report,"December 28, 2006,
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=1132 (accessed April 3, 2007).

[271]
In its earlier report, Fatal Strikes,
Human Rights Watch did not have information about Hezbollah firing from the
area. A witness quoted by Human Rights Watch for that report stated, "To my
knowledge, Hezbollah was not operating in the area, but I can't be 100 percent
sure because we were sleeping. There is a road near the house that Hezbollah
could of course have used to move around, but it was late and we were asleep in
the shelter." Fatal Strikes, pp.
24-25.

[275]
Human Rights Watch's earlier report, Fatal
Strikes, dated the attack on July 20 in the afternoon, but further
investigation and a visit to the village established that the attack took place
on July 18 at 9 a.m. Earlier witnesses also misreported the ages of those killed,
stating that `Ali Nabil was eight instead of 20. Human Rights Watch regrets the
error.

[286]
Ibid. The credibility of the witness was enhanced by the fact that she
identified other attacks in Nabi Sheet as having a Hezbollah connection,
including an IDF attack on an empty house owned by an uncle who had rented the
home to Hezbollah.

[298]
`Aita al-Sha`ab is located on the Lebanon-Israel border, and was the village
closest to the site of the July 12 Hezbollah operation that led to the
abduction of the two IDF soldiers. The village saw some of the fiercest ground
combat of the war between Hezbollah fighters and IDF ground troops. The
reference to Hezbollah fighters being inside the village refers to this urban
combat, not to Hezbollah rocket launching teams operating from inside the
village.

[324]
United Nations Department of Information press release, "Secretary-General
Shocked by Coordinated Israeli Attack on United Nations Observer Post in
Lebanon, Which Killed Two (sic)
Peacekeepers," July 25, 2006,
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sgsm10577.doc.htm (accessed April 4,
2007). The death toll of the attack was later raised to four.

[327]
Warren Hoge, "UN Says it Protested to Israel for Six Hours During Attack that
Killed 4 Observers in Lebanon," The New
York Times, July 27, 2006; UN Press Center, "Annan would have preferred
joint probe with Israel into attack on UN post-letter," July 31, 2006,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=19356&Cr=leban&Cr1=
(accessed April 4, 2007).

[334]
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, articles 8(2)(b)(iii) and
8(2)(e)(iii). Israel
is not a party to the Rome Statute. The ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law considers these provisions
to be reflective of customary humanitarian law. See pp. 580 and 597.

[351]
Yoav Stern, Yuval Yoaz, and Amos Harel, "Livni: Qana Attack Led to Turning
Point in Support for Israel,"
Haaretz, August 1, 2006.

[352]
The two fighters were Hassan Hussain Shalhoub, 36, and Mahmud Ibrahim Hashim,
39. Villagers told Human Rights Watch that Hassan died fighting outside the village of Qana. A third Hezbollah fighter, Yusif
Tiba, was killed fighting in the hills around Qana and was buried in a
different Qana cemetery.

[353]
Muhammad `Ali Shalhoub told Human Rights Watch: "Ali was not a fighter, he was
in the basement with his family, and his father and brother died with him. He
was not even an activist in Hezbollah, and he didn't have any military
training. The fighters [killed] are recognized as such, we know who they are .
Ali was not a Hezbollah fighter, but he was a strong supporter of Hezbollah so
his friends covered his coffin with a Hezbollah flag." Human Rights Watch
interview with Muhammad `Ali Shalhoub, Qana, September 14, 2006. A second
witness, the brother of one of the killed Hezbollah fighters from Qana, also
told Human Rights Watch that `Ali was not a Hezbollah member or fighter: "He
was saying before he died, 'If I die, wrap me up in the flag of Hezbollah,'
that is why he had the Hezbollah markings on his tomb." Human Rights Watch
interview (name withheld), Qana, August 18, 2006.

[354]
Human Rights Watch was unable to obtain a copy of the IDF flyer, but different
witnesses gave similar accounts of its content. According to one witness, the
leaflets stated that the IDF wanted to hit the village. "'Leave the village
now,' the leaflet saidIt said Hassan Nasrallah was worthless, and that we
should go to the north because the village would be bombarded. It was addressed
to the people of Luweizeh." Human Rights Watch interview with Rabah `Ali
Hashim, al-Luweizeh, September 24, 2006. According to a second witness, "the
leaflets said to people to leave to the north of Luweizeh . The flyer said
that those who stayed would be considered resistance, and that everyone should
go north." Human Rights Watch interview with Hussain Farhat, al-Luweizeh,
September 24, 2006.

[358]
Ibid. According to the director: "The management is independent in the same way
as the [Hezbollah] Shahid Institute [the Shahid Institute provides aid to
relatives of Hezbollah combatants that died fighting], but any financial
decision goes back to Hezbollah. We don't take money for our services.
Hezbollah nominates the board members, but we make the day-to-day decisions.
Our hospital is for all people, not just Hezbollah members."

[359]
See, for example, First Geneva Convention, article 19; Fourth Geneva
Convention, article 18; Protocol I, article 12. The IDF Laws of War in the Battlefield states: "[I]t is prohibited to
interferewith the administration of medical aid. This prohibition includes the
ban on striking hospitals and medical facilities, whether civilian or military,
as well as wound-collection sites, medical warehouses, ambulances, and so forth."
p. 32 (emphasis in original).

[372]
Ibid. ("When I would ask about what will happen to us, they would say, 'You are
here as hostages. If Hassan Nasrallah asks for you and exchanges you, you will
be freed. Otherwise, you will stay here.'")

[374]
John Kifner, "What is in a Name? Not, It Seems, A Leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon," The
New York Times, August 23, 2006.

[375]
Human Rights Watch interview (name withheld), al-Jibbain, September 12, 2006.
The municipal official told Human Rights Watch that there was a danger from
unexploded ordnance in the area, but the repeated calls from the Hezbollah
official to verify that the Human Rights Watch researchers were not proceeding
to the attack site strongly suggests that evidence of Hezbollah weapons or a
field position remained there.

[393]
Amin Muhammad Khalifa was identified as a national-level Hezbollah leader by
both his relatives (including a brother) and other residents of al-Ghaziyeh.
The witnesses did not specify if Khalifa was active in Hezbollah's military or
civilian structures.

[398]
Human Rights Watch visit to al-Ghaziyeh cemetery, September 23, 2006. The body
of Muhammad Ahmad Qa`in was never recovered, so there was no gravestone for him
at the time of Human Rights Watch's visit. There were no Hezbollah martyr
posters claiming him as a member or a fighter. All of those interviewed by
Human Rights Watch identified him as a civilian. Given his age, it is unlikely
he played any militant role in Hezbollah.

[407]
Na`im Qassem, Hizbullah: The Story from
Within (Saqi Books, 2005), p. 125 (Na`im Qassem is currently Deputy
Secretary-General of Hezbollah); Daniel Sobelman, "New Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizbollah After the Withdrawal From
Lebanon," TelAvivUniversityJaffeeCenter
for Strategic Studies Memorandum 69, January 2004.

[410]
Ibid.; Human Rights Watch visit to Shahidayn cemetery, Beirut, October 30, 2006. Twenty-four of the
39 victims of the Chiah attack are buried as civilians in the Shahidayn
cemetery, while the others were buried in their native villages.

[415]"Bloody clashes as Israel
pushes further into Lebanon,"
Agence France Presse, August 9, 2006. Hassan Sader had a brother who was a
Hezbollah fighter and left the village the first night of the war to fight at
the front, but he was not in the village at the time of the attack. Human
Rights Watch interview (name withheld), Mashghara, September 9, 2006.

[416]
Human Rights Watch visit to Mashghara cemetery, November 26, 2006. The
remaining six killed were buried as civilians.

[426]
Human Rights Watch interview with Hezbollah official (name withheld), Ghobeiry,
October 30, 2006. The Hezbollah official identified the suspected source of the
false information by name, but Human Rights Watch is withholding the identity
of the official because the information cannot be independently confirmed.

[427]Israel claimed
to have killed Sajad Dawir, identified as the "head of Hezbollah's special
forces" in the strike on the complex. See "IDF killed Hizbollah commander just
before ceasefire," Jerusalem Post,
August 15, 2006. However, Sajad Dawir spoke on Hezbollah radio after the war to
confirm he had survived, and also appeared in public at Hezbollah rallies.
Sajad Dawir does not appear to have been present at the complex when the attack
took place.

[428]
List of the dead from the building complex attack, prepared by the Islamic
Health Committee, Director-General of Civil Defense, September 18, 2006; Human
Rights Watch interview with Hassan al-Tirani, Imam Hassan building complex,
October 30, 2006; Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Fouani, member of
building committee of Imam Hassan building complex, Imam Hassan building
complex, October 30, 2006; Human Rights Watch interview with `Ali Muhammad
Bazi, Imam Hassan building complex, October 30, 2006.

[433]
The two men killed were `Ali Kamel `Abdullah, 60, the driver of the pick-up,
and Muhammad Musa Ghannam, who was in the pick-up with his wife and six
children. Neither was affiliated with Hezbollah.

[443]
Blanford, "Hizbollah and the IDF: Accepting New Realities Along the Blue Line,"
The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies.

[444]
If the first missile had been fired from the Israeli naval ship, it would most
likely have been either an artillery round from its naval guns or a Harpoon
anti-ship missile. Both the artillery round and the Harpoon missile would have
been unlikely to hit the small pick-up truck on the first strike, and would
have certainly completely demolished the vehicle with a dead-on hit. Drones
fire much smaller missiles, causing damage consistent with that caused on the
small pick-up truck, and are highly precise in their targeting. No helicopters
were seen or heard overhead during the initial strike. An airplane missile
would also have completely demolished the pick-up truck.

[472]
Ibid. Human Rights Watch originally reported that the ambulances had been
struck by missiles fired from an Israeli airplane, but that conclusion was
incorrect. See Human Rights Watch, The "Hoax" That Wasn't: The July 23 Qana
Ambulance Attack, December 2006.

[476]
Anyone responsible for deliberately making an ambulance the object of attack
would be committing a war crime. See ICRC, Customary
International Humanitarian Law, pp. 575, 593; see also Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court, articles 8(2)(b)(xxiv) and 8(2)(e)(ii).

[485]
According to UNIFIL, the convoy initially included 100 civilian vehicles and
was joined by another 365 civilian vehicles in Ibil al-Saqi. UNIFIL, "press
release," August 12, 2006, http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/pr027.pdf
(accessed April 26, 2007). The Mukhtar of Jdeidet Marj`ayoun estimated to Human
Rights Watch that as many as 1,500 vehicles joined the convoy, and that it
stretched for as long as 30-40 kilometers. He recalled that he telephoned from
the lead of the convoy in Hasbaya, 20 kilometers from Marja`youn, back to
Marja`youn and was told that the tail of the convoy was still waiting to
depart. Human Rights Watch interview with Mukhtar Karim Michel Rached, Jedeit
Marja`youn, November 4, 2006. Journalists also estimated the number of cars in
the convoy in the hundreds. See for example, Ed Cody, "Negotiations
Preceded Attack On Convoy of Fleeing Lebanese, Israeli Military Places Blame
for Killings on UN Force," Washington
Post, August 24, 2006; Anthony Shadid, "Fleeing Lebanese
Christians See Town Forever Changed," Washington
Post, August 13, 2006.

[494]InfoProCenter for Economic Information, Economic
Impact of the July 06 War and Steps Towards Recovery, November 2006, p. 25.
Other studies have shown a lower number. For example, a short report by the
Lebanese Internal Security Forces lists 78 bridges destroyed. Internal Security
Forces, Bodily and Material Damages until 10 a.m. on August 22, 2006.